The Final Apocalypse
by MorbidMan
Summary: So... whatever happened to Angel, Gunn, Spike, and Illyria in that alley? Read to find out my version. Please review.
1. Let's Get to Work

The Senior Partners  
  
Chapter One:  
  
"Let's Get to Work"  
  
Illyria looked upon the approaching army with sheer anger. She wanted to do more violence. Wesley was dead. That's all that she could think about. Wesley was dead and she had sat there while it had happened, powerless to stop the inevitable process of death. Wesley was dead and now she wanted to avenge him.  
  
Suddenly Illyria felt as though her life had no meaning. She had been so great once. She had possessed an army like this one herself during the height of her reign. Those had been the days. But, now she was reduced to this sniveling, tiny being and mourning over a being that would have meant nothing to her before. She felt detached from this vessel that the others had once known as Fred. She wondered if this suffering was all that her new life would offer her. Didn't matter now, though. Wesley was dead, and she was about to avenge his death.  
  
"Let's go to work," Angel stated somewhere that seemed in the far distance, beyond the horizon. Then she saw him slash his sword out and bring down one of the demons.  
  
The alley they were in was dark and wet. The rain that was pouring was annoying Illyria. Its splashing and pounding upon hitting whatever was beneath it seemed to overpower everything else. She felt as though she could not deal with it anymore.  
  
She grabbed a demon's armored arm and snapped it like a tooth pick.  
  
The demon looked at her and roared. Its face was covered in spikes with purplish skin that seemed stretched so tight across its skull that it might snap at any moment and expose the skull beneath. Its yellow eyes, which looked more full of anger than Illyria felt contained inside herself, fixated upon her and it opened its tusked mouth and a primal, gurgling roar was emitted. Illyria then threw it back. It landed on top of six or seven of the others and she saw it was impaled by a sword that sprayed silver blood everywhere to mix with the rain.  
  
The others threw the body off of them and rushed at Illyria. She punched one in the gut and felt as well as heard the bones beneath break. These things were as brittle as glass!  
  
She kicked the next two away and their fates were unknown to her. She snapped one's neck and then used its sword to slash the mid-sections of the rest surrounding her in a single stroke. More silver blood blasted out of the wounds.  
  
Illyria glanced at Angel and Spike. They were fighting side-by-side, taking down demon after demon with their swords. They looked like they could go a good ten or twenty minutes like that. Then Illyria searched for Gunn.  
  
She saw him slashing weakly at the demons attacking him. He was clutching at the bleeding cut on his stomach with one bloodied hand while hunched over. His blows weren't having a great effect upon his demon adversaries, and some of them were getting back up for another go at him.  
  
Illyria did not wish to see him go down so early in the battle, so she rushed over and helped him pick off the survivors.  
  
"Thanks," he gasped out and started breathing heavily.  
  
"You were in need of assistance," Illyria replied. "I did not wish to see you die so soon. You are--"  
  
"Not unpleasant to your eyes," Gunn finished. "Same to you."  
  
Illyria nodded and then turned back to the onslaught of monsters. There was a giant creature walking amongst them. Illyria knew that once it reached them they would all be killed. They wouldn't be able to bring that thing down even if their life depended upon it… which it kind of did.  
  
There was flapping above her and Illyria glanced up. There was a small dragon above them, darting about the sky, screeching its nightmarish calls into the thundering night sky. Angel had said he wanted to fight it. Looks like he was about to get his wish.  
  
The dragon had a small tail that ended in a club. Its scaled body was about fifteen feet long and it had a good thirty foot wing-span. It was relatively small compared to the dragons Illyria had seen in her time; some of those things had measured in at over a hundred feet long.  
  
Its face was slightly insect-like rather than the popular reptilian face that was commonly shown on the silver screen. It resembled a beetle and had beady black eyes that seemed dead yet lively at the same time. There was a line of large, sharp-looking spikes on its back that started just below its neck and ended at the club at the end of the tail. It had two legs while its wings served as arms.  
  
The dragon was descending in its flight. It was about to land and send them all to a fiery death.  
  
Illyria turned to Angel and Spike.  
  
"The winged one is coming!" she shouted over the surrounding roars of demons, clashes of swords, and the persistent pounding of rain. Angel turned to her and Spike's load of demons was instantly doubled.  
  
Angel approached Illyria and Gunn. Gunn was providing a weak shield for the two while Spike was just hacking away at anything that was unlucky enough to cross his path.  
  
"Help them," Angel ordered and Illyria obeyed after glancing back up at the dragon which was now less than thirty feet above the ground. Her blue hair was blowing out of her face every time it flapped its wings. She rejoined Gunn and started bashing in skulls and snapping frail bones into splinters. Gunn was weakening. His blood was running in short supply now. Illyria knew this, and she found herself already mourning him as well. That made her even more angry.  
  
"BLOODY HELL!" Spike screamed and Illyria spun to see what the problem was.  
  
A sword was protruding from Spike's chest. The demon behind him pulled it out and then buried it in his ribs. Apparently the demon didn't understand the rules of how a vampire lives and dies.  
  
Spike snatched the sword before it was retracted and pulled it from the demon's hands. He turned around and hacked its head off. He then stumbled away clutching at his side and screaming in pain.  
  
"You bastard!" he shouted and then collapsed onto his back. "Ah! Damn!"  
  
Illyria was about to go to him when he got back up and resumed fighting.  
  
Then Illyria felt a blasting heat on her back. Her skin felt like it was boiling. She fell to the ground and rolled onto her back. A bright cloud of flame was floating upwards and disappearing simultaneously. Gunn was on the ground as well.  
  
The demons that had been attacking them were now running around on fire. The dragon had shot out its first blast of the brawl. Illyria sat up and saw as Angel charged forward with his sword raised.  
  
!!!$%$%$%  
  
Angel threw his arm up to shield his face from the billowing flames that had exploded from the thing's beetle-like mouth. He then was on his feet in a flash and charging at it with his sword raised.  
  
Far, far away he heard himself hollering a war cry. Then it was crawling across the ground towards him shaking its head from side to side screeching.  
  
Angel came in low and lashed out at its wing. It lifted its wing and whacked his forehead, successfully disorienting him. It then tried its fire breath again, but Angel got his sword swinging again before it could charge itself up. The first swing put a mark on its wing while the other slashed its lower-lip which then spilled blue blood out onto the ground.  
  
The dragon screeched again and withdrew itself. Its tail whacked against the chain-link fence that marked the end of the alley. Angel saw it give way slightly, ever so slightly.  
  
The other wing came around and Angel ducked beneath it in just the nick of time. The wing rustled above him and the dragon brought it back to its side. It screeched its rage at him and then came at him full force.  
  
It turned around this time and started swinging its clubbed tail about. Angel leapt above it and landed awkwardly which caused him to fall onto his side. Like Illyria, he, too, felt as if he should avenge Wesley's death. That's probably what was making him fight despite his weakened state (that fight in the main hall had taken a lot out of him).  
  
Angel got up and suddenly felt a great deal of pain in his side as the club whipped him, throwing him against the building to his left. He heard the bricks cracking as he hit them. Then he fell to the ground again. He coughed up blood and looked up at the dragon.  
  
It was looking at him, growling deeply.  
  
"Come on then," Angel muttered at it. He winced as he stood up at the pain in his side. "Come on!"  
  
It rushed at him dazzlingly fast and Angel barely had time to roll out of the way before it had reached the building and was tearing at it. Angel slid on the slick blue and silver blood he had landed on and stopped at the feet of Illyria.  
  
"The blonde one is injured," she stated casually as if nothing was happening at all. Angel looked over and saw Spike fighting with Gunn. It didn't look like they would last long.  
  
"Little busy here," Angel replied and was suddenly pulled away by his foot, which was in the dragon's mouth, and thrown into the chain-link fence. "ACK!"  
  
He thrust his sword at the mouth still clasped tight over his foot. Blood spewed out of the wound and covered Angel's blade. He pulled it out and blood gushed out.  
  
The dragon dropped Angel into the new puddle of the blue blood and Angel winced as he felt that the blood was more like jell-o than blood.  
  
The tail came after him again. He rolled over and the club struck the pavement where he had been just a split-second ago. The pavement blasted upward and sent cracks in every direction from the center of the impact.  
  
The dragon attacked him with its hind legs and scratched up his right shoulder and arm with its hooked claws. Angel screamed and grabbed his bleeding arm in a death grip.  
  
He rolled again and the club smashed into the pavement once again. Angel got to his feet and rushed the dragon with his sword in his left hand now. He brought it down and it cleaved a bloody gash into the dragon's side.  
  
It screeched again and swung around to face him. He lost his grip on the handle of his sword and it was left growing out of the dragon's side.  
  
"Damn," he muttered under his breath and was then flung to the ground as the dragon pressed on his back with its wing. He grunted as he tried to push himself up, but it pushed him back down with great ease. Angel felt like he knew how an antelope must feel once caught by a lion. Completely helpless.  
  
He knew this was the end. He was about to die at the hands of this dragon. The culmination of all of the events of his life. He suddenly regretted signing that prophecy away. He wouldn't be in this position had he not done so.  
  
Then all of those emotions melted away as the weight lifted off of his back. He was dimly aware that Spike was dragging him away from the dragon. He briefly wondered why the dragon wasn't in the midst of mutilating the both of them, then he saw Illyria and Gunn attacking it.  
  
Illyria was snapping its tail while Gunn was slashing its legs. Illyria was tossed away with the slap of the tail's club and fell into the laps of a dozen demons. She had them all killed almost immediately and was wielding two swords afterwards.  
  
"I'm pretty sick and tired of the Senior Partners' lackeys," Spike stated and then helped Angel stand up. Angel saw that he was leaking a good deal of blood himself. "Wouldn't mind 'acking away at that dragon though."  
  
Then Spike took off with his sword, rushing at the dragon that was now focusing on Gunn.  
  
Spike buried the blade of his sword in the dragon's hide and it screeched and blew flames up into the sky in a seemingly endless stream. Spike also lost his sword as the dragon spun to face him.  
  
"Oh bollocks," Spike said and was thrown to the ground as the dragon bit at him. Spike grabbed both jaws and kept them open so that he wouldn't get chopped in half.  
  
Angel rushed forward, not taking much time to notice that Illyria was skillfully hewing through the demons unlike Spike and him had been. Gunn was stabbing the dragon futilely.  
  
"Little help here would be nice Angel!" Spike bellowed as the jaws drew closer together.  
  
Angel looked around for something to use as a weapon and could find nothing other than the two swords sticking out of the dragon. He then did the only thing he could think to do.  
  
Angel rushed forward while the dragon was distracted by Spike and grabbed the hilt of the sword he had lost. He pulled it out of the dragon, ignoring the jell-o blood that flowed out after it, and ran to the dragon's head.  
  
Too late did it realize that it should've been focusing on Angel. Angel thrust the sword straight into the dragon's beady, black eye, and then pulled Spike out of its mouth as it screeched its pain and fury to the heavens above.  
  
Angel ran forward again and pulled his sword out of its eye. It swung its head around and Angel fell over on top of it. The dragon didn't seem to care because it started flying off anyway with Angel clutching onto its head.  
  
They were fifty feet up in the air before Angel got his sword up and drove it through the dragon's skull. It was dead almost instantly. Then it fell to the ground with Angel.  
  
The impact drove the breath out of Angel and he rolled off of the dragon and fell onto the pavement. He felt a smile spread across his face.  
  
"Well… that was difficult," he got out and then started laughing, oblivious to the fighting that was still going on.  
  
Then Angel heard the last voice on Earth that he had expected to hear.  
  
"That was… impressive."  
  
Angel sat up and turned around. He trailed the body of a young girl up to her blonde head. She was holding an axe in one hand and a curved dagger in the other.  
  
"You and the others can rest," Buffy said. "We'll take it from here."  
  
Angel was about to ask what she meant, but then he saw Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, Andrew, and dozens of other girls he didn't know behind them.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
"I heard that you had come over to Rome a little bit ago," Buffy began explaining. "Figured that the world was ending."  
  
"Looks like the cavalry has arrived!" Spike shouted to the others.  
  
The Scooby Gang and friends had torn through the chain-link fence. They were now rushing forward into battle. Dawn was collecting Gunn and Illyria. She was a little wary of Illyria at first, but Illyria came with her easily enough.  
  
Dawn herded them out into the street where Angel was stunned to see Riley standing amidst a legion of soldiers.  
  
"I'm guessing you had more than a hunch that the apocalypse was coming," Angel thought aloud and Dawn smiled.  
  
"Just a little bit more than a hunch."  
  
Angel glanced back and saw Buffy with her friends and the other women mutilating the demons in the alley. They were lucky; they weren't weakened and they had a lot of numbers on their side. They only retreated when the big guy reached them. Then Riley and company blasted it to the ground.  
  
The apocalypse had begun.  
  
()()()()()()()()()()()()  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you enjoyed this first chapter of the story. I was unsatisfied with the ending of the "Angel" series and felt like writing a continuation.  
  
I thought they should've brought in Buffy and the ex-potentials for a good two-hour finale that would at least have gone this far into the battle. I'll have some more chapters up later. The ending will be more satisfying than the show's.  
  
That's it for my A/N.  
  
"I want you Lindsey… thinking about rephrasing that." - Angel "Angel" 


	2. Walking Away From Murder

Chapter Two: Walking Away From Murder  
  
Lorne was walking sulkily out of the room after throwing his gun away. It disgusted him, that gun. He abhorred it now that it was no longer innocent. Now that it had been used. No, tainted.  
  
This definitely wasn't his line of work anymore. He suddenly wished he was back in his bar serving the demons that wandered into it. He wished Holt had never blown the place up. He wished Angel had never knocked up the resurrected Darla. He wished too much.  
  
The last words that Lindsey had spoken were still ringing in his ear.  
  
"Angel kills me… Angel kills me…"  
  
Lorne suddenly felt much older than he had ever felt in his entire life. So tired now.  
  
He found himself wondering if any of the others were still living, unaware that, across the city, Angel was saying good-bye to Connor for what may have been the last time.  
  
(Angel kills me…)  
  
Lorne stepped out of the building and into the night. The sky was pouring rain down upon him in an annoyingly endless stream.  
  
(You kill me!?)  
  
The stars were glaring down at him from the sky. They seemed angry. Angry at him for what he had done.  
  
(A lackey!?)  
  
Lorne rubbed his hand, which still tingled from the gun's two jolts in it. He hadn't expected the jolts to be so bad, so powerful… so final. He had just committed an irrevocable act, and he felt infected by its horrid nature.  
  
(No… no…)  
  
Lorne walked on the sidewalk against the thin traffic. He could hear distant roars and knew what had begun. Angel and the survivors were in the alley right now, fighting their hearts out. He would never see them again. They would never see him again.  
  
(You won't find me in the alley… in fact, you won't find me anywhere.)  
  
Lorne jerked his head up suddenly as a group of cars came careening down the street. In the first one he could see the silhouette of an oddly familiar girl. Then the car was gone and dozens of military vehicles were streaming in its wake.  
  
Lorne suddenly felt he should conceal his face, so he pulled his trench coat up enough to do so and looked back down at his feet. He had forgotten to keep himself hidden from the civilians. Luckily enough there had been none, which was a strange, and lucky, coincidence.  
  
(That's all folks.)  
  
Lorne closed his eyes tight. The line of cars had passed on now. Lorne had no doubts that they were speeding off to aid Angel. Somehow Angel had gotten one last call out, and goody for him.  
  
Lorne would disappear into the darkness, thus fading from the story forever. He could feel it in his yellow, cartilaginous bones.  
  
"Good luck Angel," he muttered under his breath while looking the general direction he believe Angel to be. "You're gonna need it."  
  
(Angel kills me…)  
  
He was still shaken up by the things that had happened over the past few months. Time-traveling, Spike coming to them as a ghost, Spike coming back to life, losing his trust for Angel and then half regaining it only a few hours later, the death of Fred and the arrival of Illyria, and, last but not least, him murdering Lindsey.  
  
Such morbid actions were not for him. Not in his nature of song and dance.  
  
(Wha--? Why'd you--?)  
  
He suddenly remembered that look of realization on Lindsey's face with stunningly brutal clarity.  
  
He continued walking, listening to the battle in the far distance, and the roaring of cars in the near distance. Everyone seemed to be far away from him suddenly. Too far. He felt like he was suffocating in all that open space between him and everyone else.  
  
"You don't kill me."  
  
Lorne's eyes widened greatly as he abandoned his stealthy approach to walking down the sidewalk and spun around to see if his ears had deceived him. They hadn't.  
  
Lindsey was holding a gun to Lorne's head with his finger pressing the trigger ever so slightly.  
  
"Angel kills me," Lindsey repeated himself. Lorne looked down and saw Lindsey clutching his stomach, which was bleeding profusely.  
  
"Lindsey?!" Lorne exclaimed.  
  
"YOU DON'T KILL ME DAMMIT!" Lindsey screamed and pulled the trigger just as Lorne darted to the side. The gun blast seemed exceedingly loud in the quiet street. "ANGEL KILLS ME!"  
  
Spittle was rocketing out of Lindsey's mouth as he shouted at the open space in front of him with such intense rage that it shook Lorne to his soul. He didn't even try calming Lindsey down because he understood it would do nothing. Lorne had attempted to kill Lindsey, and now Lindsey was back to return the favor… with interest.  
  
"ANGELKILLSMEANGELKILLSMEANGELKILLSME YOU DON'T!" Lindsey shouted as he pulled the trigger continuously, each blast causing Lorne to jump. "YOU DON'T YOU DON'T YOU DON'T!"  
  
Then Lindsey seemed to realize no one was in front of him and lowered the empty, smoking weapon. "Angel kills me," he whispered. "You don't."  
  
Lorne started backing away and kept doing so until his back hit the building behind him. He stood there, waiting for Lindsey's next move. Perhaps he was even hoping, in some part of him that his conscious mind didn't hear, that Lindsey would come after him and kill him.  
  
"Angel kills me… Angel…" Then Lindsey seemed to come to some other revelation. "I need to go find him. The alley. Monsters. Demons. Armageddon. He kills me and I… I have to find him. H-He needs to kill me."  
  
Lorne stood there awkwardly watching Lindsey as he stared at the ground, his unkempt hair hanging down over his face. For a moment Lorne felt total guilt about what he had done. For a moment he nearly felt friendship with his victim.  
  
(You're not part of the solution.)  
  
And then the moment was broken as Lindsey turned and limped away screaming his inarticulate jumble of emotions into the night with just a hint of sobbing beneath that.  
  
Lorne looked at the retreating Lindsey and remembered that his last job was to kill Lindsey. That was the last thing Angel had requested from him, and if the Champion were to be deceased, that would be his dying wish. Lorne needed to kill Lindsey, but he didn't want to now; he felt too bad for the bastard.  
  
"Another time," Lorne said, and then turned around and walked off down the street with his trench coat billowing out behind him and his face exposed to the wind and the eyes of any civilian. This wasn't his line of work anymore, but he still had to finish it at some time.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
"I think we've gotten them all," Willow said as she trotted up to Buffy with her blood-covered sword glinting in the moon light. Buffy had a fleeting thought of Sting, Frodo's sword in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, as it glowed to warn its possessor of the approaching threat of orcs. "Well, those that were here anyway."  
  
"Good," Buffy replied. She hung her head then. She missed her lover back in Rome who everyone had come to know as "The Immortal", or something along those lines anyway. He hadn't come because he had broken up with her. Apparently he didn't like being buckled down to one woman for long. Oh well.  
  
Then she realized something. "W-Was Spike just with them?"  
  
Willow paused and started thinking. "I… don't think so."  
  
"I could've sworn I'd seen him."  
  
"There were four of them. You probably mistook Wesley for Spike."  
  
"Yeah." Buffy didn't actually believe that. Something told her that Spike had indeed been with Angel, the black guy with the axe, and the weird blue demon that slightly resembled a member of the Blue Man Group. "I must've."  
  
Xander ran up to them next in the alley that was knee-deep with dead bodies (not literally of course). "Okay," Xander gasped out of breath. "Did anybody else think they saw Spike back there?"  
  
Buffy and Willow looked at each other. Willow looked worried and confused. Buffy imagined she had the same look mirrored on her own face. Xander looked back and forth between them, curious as to what was going on.  
  
"It's impossible Buffy," Willow stated. "You saw him burning up. He couldn't possibly be here. He's dead."  
  
"You saw me leap through that portal and die," Buffy began. "But I came back. And I came back after the Master drowned me."  
  
!!!$%$%$%  
  
Spike was drugged and his eyesight was bleary. He felt those military doctors digging into him, searching for any sort of poisonous substance that may have been on the blades that had cut him. He was worried they were gonna put the chip back in his head.  
  
Bollocks. That bloody chip again. He wasn't sure if he could deal with it. Not that he wanted to drain anyone now that he was all pumped full of that richy goodness of soul, but it was such an irritating little gadget.  
  
"AH!" Spike hollered his pain to the doctor that had just sliced his abdomen open entirely. He felt like he was being skinned alive. "Watch the organs!"  
  
"Sorry," the doctor replied hesitantly, after jumping of course. He looked scared. Bugger was probably new to the whole vampire thing. Scared out of his mind he was. "I just need to get a better view, and, you know, you vampires can heal pretty well I hear. I also heard you enjoyed pain, too."  
  
"There's a difference between good pain and bad pain you nitwit!" Spike screamed, his voice strained in pain. "This is bad PAIN!"  
  
The doctor pulled a bullet out of Spike's stomach and looked at it questioningly. Spike looked at it. "I forgot all about that bug. Interesting story really."  
  
Suddenly the flap of the medical tent flew open and a woman stepped inside. She had blonde hair and a bloody sword hanging by her side which glinted in the yellow light.  
  
"Hello dot," Spike said dreamily. He was drifting into sleep from the drugs. "Never thought I'd be seeing you again."  
  
"Spike?"  
  
()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I never thought I'd get quite so many reviews for this story… but I did. Thanks to all of my reviewers.  
  
Thanks for the suggestions as well. I was gonna bring Lindsey back even before it was suggested, but thanks for that one anyway.  
  
"You kill me!? A lackey!? No… no… Angel kills me…" - Lindsey "Angel" 


	3. An Unexpected Guest Arrives

**Chapter Three: An Unexpected Guest Arrives**  
  
It wasn't much at all, Wesley's funeral. It took place in the wee hours of the morning as a fresh shower of rain barraged them. Wesley's body had been placed inside of a plain, wooden casket. It was all they could scrounge up at such short notice.  
  
The funeral was done in the Woods Will Cemetery. A perimeter was set up around the cemetery so that no demons could break in and ruin the funeral. Illyria was the first to pay her respects.  
  
Standing over Wesley's casket, staring at his dead, pale face she restrained herself from shedding tears as Illyria. She didn't want to accept her humanity so completely. All that she did was lie to him again. She dropped flowers into his casket as Fred, not Illyria. As Fred, she cried. As Fred, she really paid her respects. As Illyria, she sucked it up and walked away, trying to ignore the hole in her stomach that was doing nothing but getting bigger and bigger.  
  
Next came Gunn. He apologized to Wesley for everything. For the hatred Gunn had shown to Wesley the year before. For messing up and getting Fred killed to be replaced by Illyria. Hell, he even apologized for cheating at a poker game they'd played a couple years beforehand.  
  
Gunn wiped a single tear from his eye and uttered his final good-bye. "I'm gonna miss you Wes."  
  
Then Gunn left.  
  
Spike came forward next. "Hey there Wes. Didn't know ya for long… or all that well for that matter. Sucks being dead. I should know; been there myself. No walk in the park I can tell you that. And I guess Angel was right about not all of us making it. A lot of people have said that in the past, but I guess I'm not used to it being true despite the fact.  
  
"So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna go find a place to sit down. The dissection last night wasn't so fun and I'm still feeling pain from it. I'll see you when I die for the second… actually third time. As long as I don't come back as some non-corporeal ghost again. If Buffy had seen me like that she might've thought she hadn't actually gotten around to successfully killing the First. Bye."  
  
Spike turned around and walked off, his coat--which looked exactly like the one he had taken from Ms. Wood back in the seventies but was only a duplicate--billowing out behind him as he trudged off through the dew covered grass.  
  
Angel was the last to pay his respects. He stood in the exact spot that Spike had and stared down at Wesley's body. He looked so peaceful. Angel hoped he was at peace. God knows he deserved it.  
  
"I don't have any flowers. It seemed too feminine. But I do have something to give you. I could've gotten you something better, but with the apocalypse and all I had to settle for this."  
  
Angel then grinned a little and pulled out an old, paper-back dictionary. It was the only book that he could find, and since Wesley was a book-worm from birth it seemed only fitting to give him a book. Angel set it down next to the bouquet of flowers that Illyria had given him in her Fred form.  
  
"Never would've thought we'd turn out friends. Especially after we first met in L.A. with you pointing a crossbow at my heart trying to intimidate me. Didn't work out like you had planned. Remember?"  
  
There was a depressing silence that followed that.  
  
"Well, I can't really think of anything to say. Had I been given more time I'd have written a speech worthy of this occasion. Unfortunately I had no time, and this was all that I could offer you. I suppose it's better than nothing. Once I die a third time I'll see you. Good-bye Wesley."  
  
Angel then left as well.  
  
The Scooby gang was half-way across the city battling a hot spot of other demons during the funeral and were unable to make it. Wesley's casket was slowly lowered into the hole in the ground by Initiative soldiers working ropes and pulleys.  
  
There was an evacuation of L.A. later that day. Every single man, woman, and child was gone by midnight. Had there not been the extra incentive to leave caused by the army of demons they never would've gotten out so soon.  
  
And had it not been for the confusion and chaos a certain shiny, black Camaro never would've gotten into the city.  
  
"All little ants… running away," the passenger mumbled as though she were stoned. "Leaving the queen to die all by her lonesome self."  
  
The driver looked over at the passenger with a smile on his face.  
  
"Angel's going after the queen," the driver said in a deep voice. "And by queen I mean the Senior Partners of course."  
  
"Are we going to see Spike? I heard he died in a blistering blast of sunlight."  
  
"Oh yeah, we're gonna see Spike."  
  
"Are we going to hurt… the little bird?" the passenger asked. If Spike had seen the passenger his jaw would've dropped and his years and years of being a soulless killing machine with this woman would've come back to him again. This woman had sired Spike. This woman's name was Drusilla, driven insane by Angel before finally being sired herself. Vampified as one who didn't know the word 'sire' might say.  
  
The man chuckled. "Definitely."  
  
"Good."  
  
Drusilla ran her long fingernail across the window, which was being barraged by rain. She smiled as she followed a collection of rain drops with her finger. She hadn't seen Spike in a long time. Last time she'd seen him he had been without a soul, and had only died once.  
  
"Are the dead men going to arrive soon?"  
  
"Sure thing sweet thing. The dead men, the Jarlkarlones, the Senior Partners, the whole she - friggin' - bang. Probably some things we don't know about even. The apocalypse is here baby. And it sure as hell is gonna be one hell of a show.  
  
"Strange thing, this world. Vampire Angel tried to kill the world with me and my Spike once. And now the two of them are trying to save it while I'm all alone trying to destroy it with you."  
  
"And here's another strange thing: I stopped the first apocalypse."  
  
Then the driver began cackling. Two million years had passed since his birth. Well, almost anyway. It would be ten years before his big two - oh - oh - oh - oh - oh - oh… and thus the end of the world. His birth had stopped the first apocalypse. Nothing like him had ever been born before. He was human. He was the first human being ever given life. His two - millionth birthday had been destined to be the end of the world.  
  
Revenerusbogan was his initial title. Now it was Bob. Well, Robert actually, but he liked Bob more. It seemed more compact.  
  
Bob's birth had stopped the First's first attempt at an apocalypse. It had shocked the First into submission and then the demons had forced it back into the ground where it had lain dormant until just last year when it had been killed by Buffy and her group.  
  
Bob had been there for the first slayer's creation. He had watched the woman struggling with her chains, struggling with all her might. Then the demon essence had gone into her and she had broken out of said chains to go on a killing spree in which all of the victims were demons.  
  
Now Bob was assisting all of those involved in the final apocalypse that would force the Earth to collapse. He chuckled a little as he flipped on his high beams.  
  
The world would be going to hell soon. And he'd been chowing down on Cheetos when it did.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()  
  
** Hey, MorbidMan here. Sorry for such a short chapter. I'm not really all that inspired at the moment. The next chapter should be longer. Reviews are highly appreciated. Have a nice day.  
  
"KEEP AWAY FROM ME!" - Frank "28 Days Later" (I have a fan fiction up for this movie too. It is about the deaths of each of the characters that die. I've got the first two major deaths written about.)


	4. A Lycanthrope in a Cage

**Chapter Four: A Lycanthrope in a Cage  
**  
Control had been lost during the last full moon. A tranquilizer dart had been fired and that was lucky to have been all that was fired.  
  
In the damp, dark place in the basement of a body - builder's house something furry bashed against the cage bars, bellowing in rage. Its claws scrapped against the dirt floor and jaws clamped down over metal. Yellow eyes swirled in their sockets, trying to see everything that may pose a threat. Drool dripped to the ground to be covered in kicked up dirt moments later. Snarling was all that one would hear if down there, other than the banging.  
  
The full moon was out. It was shining its bright light down upon the abandoned streets of Los Angeles just as it was the thinning traffic in Chautauqua County up in New York. The time was near midnight. Just another six to seven hours until sun rise and the Lycanthrope trapped in the tough cage in the basement of a body - builder's house would expose itself for who it really was.  
  
Who was the body - builder? Toby Manlilker. He was a hunter, had been for nearly two decades ever since his fifteenth birthday when his mother had been ravaged by a Lycanthrope (which is much more commonly known as a werewolf). Toby had a loaded tranquilizer gun aimed at the most common part of the cage that the Lycanthrope he had captured bashed into.  
  
Something had told Toby not to kill this one like he had so many others. What was strange was that while Toby didn't know it, he had been travelling down to a little town that went by the name of Sunnydale not so many years ago to kill this very one.  
  
Toby took a long drag of the cigarette that he had in his mouth and then crushed it out in the black ash tray on the night stand beside the red chair that looked quite a lot like the chair Morpheus from "The Matrix" had sat in while explaining what the Matrix was to a bewildered Neo. He watched the cigarette send out one last puff of smoke that spread out in the air to disappear.  
  
The dingy basement, which was full of barbells, weights, and exercise mats, was lit up by a single, powerful bulb in the center of it all. The light exposed everything with terrific accuracy and brilliance. Toby could even make out the few blood coated furs from where his dart had struck the Lycantrhope.  
  
He didn't know why he hadn't already killed and skinned this one. It was a big one, it would make him a lot of money. So why was it still living?  
  
Toby rubbed his hand over his lip. It came away wet. Damn. He had thought the bleeding had stopped. This werewolf had slashed his lip wide open before being tranquilized. That was another reason that the peculiar survival of this creature confused Mr. Manlilker.  
  
"What is so special about you?" he asked the thing. It stopped its charge to the gate and looked at him. For a moment Toby thought it was going to give him an answer in an English accent. Just for a moment though. Then it charged at him screaming and slamming into the inner side of the cage. "Doesn't seem like there's much special about you at all. No. So, what is with my urge to kill you? Or, lack there of?"  
  
Suddenly a strange name was whispered into his ear from a disembodied voice. Even the Lycanthrope stopped its thrashing and listened to the strange, ethereal voice. "Jarlkarlones," it said. And then it was gone and the Lycanthrope started its thrashing again as if nothing had happened.  
  
Toby's aimed tranquilizer gun started shaking, a very rare thing to ever happen with Toby. He was a professional gun man, which was why he had bagged so many werewolves before. Now it was shaking and he had no control over it. His entire body was shaking. The voice must've been a hallucination of his, of course. That's all. Yet, hadn't the Lycanthrope heard it, too?  
  
"I must be losing my damn mind. Letting you live. Hearing voices talking gibberish. What the hell is a Jarlkarlone, anyway? Shit. Going insane isn't good." He should know. He had been placed in an asylum back when he was fifteen after his mother had been slaughtered. Insanity wasn't an easy road to go down at all.  
  
Suddenly a window upstairs shattered. Toby jumped and dropped his tranq gun. It fell to the dirt floor as Toby got to his aging feet. He didn't look that old, but, boy, did he feel old!  
  
Footsteps followed the shatter. They were coming down the stairs to the first floor just above him. Toby looked around for his tranq gun and damn near tripped over it. He yanked it up and aimed it at the stair case as foot steps trailed into the living room just above him and then into the kitchen.  
  
Just behind the door above they stopped. He heard a man speaking and suddenly he smiled. He was so wired he had thought it was some strange sort of creature  
  
(Jarlkarlone)  
  
coming after him. What a relief! A man he could handle. A Jarlkarlone (whatever the hell that is) he didn't think his mind could take.  
  
Then the door at the top of the stairs was blown outward, breaking into two pieces which both slammed into the dirt on the floor, spraying up clouds which hindered Toby's sight.  
  
"What the--!?" Toby started, then quieted as rapid descent could be heard on the stairs. It was amazing so much dirt had been kicked up by the door fragments. It was surreal really. The dirt seemed more like sand than anything.  
  
Then the cage behind him blasted open. Not from the werewolf, no. It had just blasted open. All of the bars bent outward violently. However, they looked like they had been made that way. Not like they had been forced into the shape they were in.  
  
"Holy shit!" Toby exclaimed as the Lycanthrope plundered out of it and charged at him. He aimed and shot it in the nose. It yelped out in pain and then rolled to a stop at Toby's feet. Good God it was big! Twelve feet tall at least! He was surprised it hadn't slammed its head into the ceiling in its charge.  
  
But, it had only been six or seven when he had tranquilized it the first time and thrown it in the cage. It had grown six or five feet and he hadn't even noticed until now!  
  
Suddenly Toby realized he himself was taller. "What's going on!?" he exclaimed to the decreasing cloud. Then the disembodied voice began speaking again. This time Toby couldn't make out what it was saying. He didn't care either. It was scaring the living hell out of him.  
  
Then the voices stopped and the dirt that seemed more like sand settled and the feeling that he was taller diminished. Toby looked at the Lycanthrope's cage and saw that the bars were all good and dandy, that is, other than in the parts that the Lycanthrope had bashed against. No violently torn open bars at all.  
  
The werewolf was out though. It was sleeping like a baby at his feet. It wasn't more than seven feet tall now. The door was intact at the top of the stairs. Everything seemed alright and OK and just dandy. Toby suspected he really was going insane.  
  
"How in the hell did you get out of there?" Toby asked the unconscious werewolf at his feet.  
  
"Ah, I let 'im out mate," said an voice with an Australian accent from behind him. Toby gasped and spun around with his tranquilizer gun up and at the ready.  
  
It was aimed at a man that looked a bit like that guy on the "Crocodile Hunter" show. Steve Irwin was his name? Just a bit. A hardly noticeable resemblance. The rest of him looked like a cross between Steven Seagal and Edward Norton. He had beard stubble and a mustache that looked a few days old. His overgrown, blonde hair was hanging down over his insane - looking light blue eyes. Hell, let's throw in a little Crispin Glover to complete the image.  
  
"Think you could lower that weapon, eh?" the man said. Now he sounded more Canadian. How could he have ever thought he sounded Australian, or looked like Steve Irwin for that matter. He looked like Anthony Hopkins, Steven Seagal, and Brad Pitt all mixed in together. Perhaps Johnny Depp, too. "Makes me a bit nervous." Now he sounded English and looked like someone that Toby had never seen before. That's because Toby had never seen Rupert Giles or Whyndom Price.  
  
"Who are you?" Toby asked, his weapon not wavering. he squinted one of his eyes. Now the man looked like Keanu Reeves and Toby Maguire.  
  
"The Man in the Black Suit," the man replied, then laughed. "Just messing with you. That's the title of a Stephen King story. My name's Richard. My friends call me Dick."  
  
Richard, who now, unknown to Toby, looked like a cross between Angel and Xander, offered his hand to shake. Toby stood his ground. The gun wasn't lowered. Richard sighed and rolled his eyes. Then he spoke in a voice that sounded like Eminem.  
  
"I could run up to you and snap your neck before a single thought crossed your mind. I have powers that you don't and am not willing to put them to use. Now lower the gun and let's have a talk."  
  
Toby reluctantly lowered his gun.  
  
"Besides," Richard said in a voice similar to Orlando Bloom's. "Tranquilizer darts won't have any affect on me. You'd just be wasting ammo."  
  
"What was all of that about?"  
  
"All of what?" Now he sounded like Spike.  
  
"The door! A-A-And the cage... and the clo--!"  
  
"Oh! That! Well, you funny little man, that, as you so eloquently put it, was just to freak the hell out of you and to make you ask questions." Richard looked like Jerry Springer and was sounding now like a drunk version of our beloved William the Bloody. "I just did it to make your adrenaline pump like hell. I work in mysterious ways like that."  
  
"You dick," Toby muttered.  
  
"Did you not get the memo? That's what my friends call me! You aren't a friend you dolt. You're an acquaintance. Big difference between a friend and an acquaintance."  
  
"Why are you here?"  
  
"Just about to get to that," Richard replied in Buffy's voice. He now looked like a cross between Andrew and Willow. "Ever heard of **Prophecy B - 5 - 74**? No? Thought you would've. Anyway. **B - 5 - 74** clearly states that a werewolf, or Lycanthrope if you will, puts a stop to an agent of the Apocalypse. _**Apocalypse 666**_ to be exact. Everything has numbers nowadays. **_Apocalypse 666_** is the final prophecized apocalypse. Of course, it it's stopped then of course others will take place. They won't have prophecies about them, though. That'll cause some major problems for other Slayers. Don't suppose you know what a Slayer is? Of course you don't."  
  
Toby took a step back as Richard, who now looked like Toby Manlilker, took a step forward. Richard was drinking tea from a shot glass with an umbrella in it. He took a sip and smiled. "Great taste. Want some?" Richard offered the glass and Toby shook his head 'no'. "You sure? It tastes really nifty." Richard's voice now sounded like Toby's. A man studying Toby's picture for an eternity couldn't tell the difference between the two.  
  
"Get back to story Dick," Toby demanded.  
  
"You aren't my friend. To you, my name's Richard. Repeat after me. Rich - ard."  
  
"Bast - ard."  
  
"Cute. Now, where was I? Oh yes. A Lycanthrope is supposed to stop an agent of _**Apocalypse 666**_. Since it's supposedly the Final Apocalypse, people decided to referr to the devil's number as 666. There's some trivia for you. So, this is that Lycanthrope. We're not certain if he's to stop Apocalypse 666 or just to delay it, but he does one or the other. By 'we' I mean the ex-Powers That Be. We aren't so strong, which means we can't take physical form, but we are still quite strong. And there's a problem there. I can't take a physical form. The thing you see is just a glamour.  
  
"I change into different visions of people continuously because I just don't like to do things the simple way. Speaking of, time to change."  
  
Richard then turned into a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger (a.k.a. Governor Schwarzenegger) and George Costanza from "Seinfeld". His voice sounded like Ben Stiller's Derek Zoolander voice. "I believe there is more to life than looking extremely good-looking." He then laughed hysterically. "Ever seen that movie? LOVE that movie!"  
  
"What movie?"  
  
"Well, "Zoolander" you dumbass." This last bit he said with a lisp. When he spoke again it was Ben Stiller's voice once again. "This Lycan-whatey's name is Oz." Then his voice sounded like Willow's. "My old fling. But then I turned lesbian and mostly forgot all about him." Richard laughed and then his voice sounded like Toby's again. "His name is Oz and he used to live in Sunnydale. He was friends with a big group of demon - hunters who were commonly called the Scooby gang. They included the Slayer Buffy, her Watcher Rupert Giles, the wicca Willow, who, by the way, tried to destroy the world once, and Alexander Harris, who now only has one eye.  
  
"The group has expanded a bit to include an on - again, off - again vengeance demon Anya, the other Watcher who died a day or two ago Whyndom Price a.k.a Wesley or Wes, Andrew Wells, who used to be evil but now isn't, and a bunch of others. It's hard to keep track of them all you know.  
  
"So Oz here is a savior or delayor. Either way he's necessary for the upcoming war. No, scratch that. The war that is already here. Demons amok in the big L.A. Do you not watch the news? Not that it's on the news. And since I can't go into physical form I need you to take Oz down to the Big Apple for me. Or is that New York City that they call the Big Apple? Ah, who cares? Take him to Los Angeles. No hesitation. Leave everything here. Actually, take your wallet and buy a gun."  
  
"I'm not going to Los Angeles," Toby stated. He started lifting the gun again. With blinding speed Richard ran within two inches from Toby's face and tore the tranq gun from his hand. He then threw it across the room. "I thought you weren't physical!"  
  
"Heh, heh. I'm not. I didn't do that. I made you think I was when it was really you who was doing that."  
  
"I just threw my own gun away? That's lunacy!"  
  
"Look for yourself."  
  
Suddenly Richard was back drinking tea and Toby's arm was still in the position it had been after chucking the gun away. "How the hell did you make me do that?"  
  
"I've got some tricks up my sleeves. Now, if you don't go to L.A. I'll kill you, err... make you kill yourself and think I'm doing it, and then get someone else to take Oz to L.A."  
  
Toby considered this for a second or two before agreeing to take Oz to L.A.  
  
"Okay. Now go you funny little man! Go!"  
  
Toby looked at the Lycanthrope Oz and back up at Richard. "No way will I be able to lug that thing up the stairs on my own."  
  
Then Richard sounded and looked like Brad Pitt from the movie "Fight Club". "Sure you will. You just need a little help. You get the orange juice concentrate and I'll get the gasoline. We'll mix it all together and blow him out of here!"  
  
"What?!"  
  
"A joke Raymond. Just a joke. You might want to move out of that crappy basement apartment thingy and try and become a veterinarian soon or I'm gonna kill you. A joke Toby! Watch more movies. Then you need to get a haircut and get a real job because this whole Hunter thing really isn't working out for you. Team work Toby. I can make him seem as light as a feather to you if you pick him up. Now do it. If you hesitate I'll kill you. I love threatening you with that."  
  
Toby reluctanly, without hesitation of course, bent his knees and lifted Oz with his legs. What do you know? He WAS as light as a feather.  
  
"See? What'd I tell you? Now take him upstairs or I'll cut off your balls."  
  
Toby hurried upstairs, trying to convince himself that he was insane and that this was all a dream or a hallucination. Richard's laughter followed him out to his truck. Toby opened the tail gate, holding Oz with one hand miraculously, and then threw Oz into the back. He then ran into the driver's seat and started the truck.  
  
Then Richard appeared in front of the truck, still looking like Brad Pitt. "Watch out for anything that looks weird Toby. If you see a Jarlkarlone you steer right clear of it. You got that? Don't ask me what one looks like. You'll know when you see it. Even the demons that look more menacing than it you'll know aren't a Jarlkarlone. Just get on and get now!" Richard was suddenly Granny from the "Looney Tunes" cartoons and had a broom in one hand poised to bat at Sylvester the cat.  
  
Richard put the pedal to the metal as it is said and the truck took off with a better than average acceleration. He melded in with the traffic on Falconer Street and road it all the way down past the central school until the highway came up. He turned into the highway and drove off. When Oz awoke in the morning somewhere near Los Angeles he quickly covered himself up with a bit of tarp in one corner of the truck's back. He then wondered where the hell he was going, and why he had lost control of his wolf form the night before.  
  
Meanwhile...  
  
"How come you never told me that Spike was alive Andrew?" Buffy demanded after getting alone with Andrew. She had found out from Spike that Andrew and him had met twice after Spike's incineration at Sunnydale.  
  
"Well, be-because I don't know."  
  
"Why not?" Anger was swelling in her. She didn't know why she was so angry with Andrew, but she was.  
  
"I-I-I was s-scared that maybe you'd leave after you found out. I didn't want you to leave because then Dawn would leave and I wouldn't know where to go... I just wanted us all to be together. You two are the closest thing I've ever had to a family. Well, besides my actual family. But my brother was a psycho with wolves so it obviously wasn't a great family."  
  
Andrew then looked at his feet as he trailed off and started shifting weight from one foot to the other. "I'm sorry Buffy."  
  
Buffy sighed. "It's alright. Sorry I got so angry. I'm just a little shell - shocked now that he's still alive and I thought he was dead and moved on to that ass Immortal."  
  
"Heh, heh."  
  
Buffy looked at him confused. "What's so funny?"  
  
"You called him an 'ass'. Never thought I'd hear you call the Immortal that. I just thought it was funny and... I'll shut up now."  
  
Buffy shook her head and turned around. They were in a small military tent that Andrew was using as a house. She walked through the flap and looked around at all of the soldiers running around. Some were very young. She wondered if they'd stand much of a chance against the next wave of demons. Against the Senior Partners.  
  
Giles had said they stood a good chance, but the look in his eyes told a different, not so happy tale. Apparently the Senior Partners were just as bad, if not worse, than the First. That was definitely enough to stock the odds against them, even if they did have several Slayers and an army of soldiers trained to kill demons. Not to mention the most powerful witch the world has seen in a long time. Then there was the one - eyed man who was great at slaughtering demons, especially now that he wanted to avenge Anya's death. This didn't exclude Dawn, who had grown to be one hell of a good fighter. Despite all of that, they didn't stand a great chance. And Buffy was used to not standing much of a chance. It was old news.  
  
Not far away Bob and Drusilla settled into an empty apartment building that still had most of the owners' possessions inside.  
  
That was the night that the first Jarlkarlone set foot upon the Earth. Not just for that incident. It was the first Jarlkarlone EVER to set foot on Earth. And it was ready to shed a lot of blood.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()  
**  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I don't have word count on the program I'm using, but I think this is a very long chapter. I hope you like it. I want to bring all of the surviving "Buffy" and "Angel" main characters into this fic, and mention all of the non-surviving main characters.  
  
Since I got a couple of people finding the name Bob humorous, I decided to throw a Dick in there as well. Alright, I'm tired. I'll see you all next chapter. Thanks for reading and please review. Good night.  
  
Oh, and by the way, Chautauqua County is in New York State. It is composed of Chautauqua, Jamestown (the birthplace of Lucielle Ball from "I Love Lucy" and Roger Tory Peterson a nature-nut), and Falconer. They aren't big cities like the Big Apple a.k.a New York City. I live in Chautauqua County so I should know. Good night.  
  
"The question, Raymond, is 'What did you want to be'!" - Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt's character) "Fight Club"


	5. A Dead Man

**Chapter Five: A Dead Man  
**  
Buffy decapitated the first demon to appear out of the shadows with her katana. It was another tight, purple - skinned weak thing with spikes sticking out of its head. Said head then rolled across the street and stopped at the feet of Willow. She looked down at it and then back up at Buffy and smiled.  
  
"One down, two - hundred more to go," she stated humorously. Buffy looked down the street and saw a fresh wave of the things that Giles said were Mochlackdangodenacks rushing towards the two of them. The mid - morning sun blazed through the clouds and cast blue light down at them. Buffy didn't like how the early sun cast blue light instead of yellow.  
  
"Think we can take them all?" Buffy inquired.  
  
"All of them? Not a chance. Some of them, yeah. The odds are one in a hundred that we'd take 'em successfully. But with help," Willow nodded behind Buffy and she turned around to see that strange, blue demon called Illyria standing there. She didn't look very happy. Not like she should've been; she had just attended her friend's funeral not twenty hours ago and the other one, Gunn, was still under medical supervision. "I think we can take them fine."  
  
"Hey there," Buffy said. "Ready to kick demon ass?"  
  
"I am not familiar with that phrase," Illyria stated, and then asked with her head cocked: "What does it mean?"  
  
"It means kill demons."  
  
"Then I wish to kick demon ass," Illyria replied.  
  
The demons, whose bones could now be seen through their skin layers of skin thanks to the sunlight, were now quite close. Willow, to the right, began reciting an incantation. The wind speed began to pick up. The air was pungent thanks to the close proximity of the Mochlackdangodenacks.  
  
Suddenly the air heated up quite noticeably and a good twenty to thirty demons burst into flames and started screeching in pain. They ran around, abandoning their weapons and their urge to kill in the process along with starting fire to a good forty or fifty other demons.  
  
Buffy looked at Willow questioningly.  
  
"A spell I absorbed when I was all veiny, dark - haired, and evil Willow," Willow stated.  
  
"No," Buffy replied. "They're wearing armor, how are they starting the others on fire?"  
  
"Their skin is flammable and their sweat is similar to gasoline."  
  
Buffy looked at the increasing number of burning demons and smiled. That was a great weakness to bear in mind.  
  
The three or four dozen demons that escaped the fate of burning to death charged forth with their swords raised. Buffy demolished the closest three quickly. Willow continued to set others on fire. Illyria was snapping them in half like tooth - picks and tossing them away like rag dolls. These things were unbelievably weak. Nothing like the uber - vamps of the First's awe - inspiring army.  
  
Had Illyria not been there, a demon would've stabbed Buffy in the back after she had killed only ten of the small army. Luckily enough for Buffy, Illyria had grabbed its arm before it could and had twisted its head clean off with a satisfied grunt.  
  
Had it not been for Illyria saving Buffy, then Willow would've been decapitated shortly after Buffy's death. Fortunately Buffy shouted to Willow and she ducked the blade, then incinerated the Mochlackdangodenack.  
  
The actual amount of demons that had charged the trio had been two - hundred and twenty - six. Willow had killed ninety - eight. Illyria had killed one - hundred and one. Buffy had killed twenty - seven. It was strange how the Slayer, the one destined to kill demons and vampires, had somehow become the weakest of a book - worm witch and what used to be another book - worm.  
  
After the battle was over and the demon bodies had been reported to the clean - up crew, which came by later and burned all dead bodies from the battle, the three went on the hunt again.  
  
Not twenty minutes later Faith was discovered battling ten of the demons.  
  
Illyria charged forth and grabbed two of the demons. Faith barely took notice of her arrival. Illyria then smashed the heads of the two demons together and brain tissue and bits and pieces of skull flew out in all directions. Not a moment later Illyria punched a hole through the chest of another creature of the night and tore the neck out from under the cranium of yet another. Four dead there. Faith told her to back off and killed the rest effortlessly with swing after swing from her two - sided skull axe.  
  
"I wished to kick demon ass," Illyria said after the last demon of the group dropped to the ground, dead in a pool of its own blood. "Why did you order that I not do so?"  
  
"Well, smurf," Faith began. "I wished to do so as well. And what's with your speech anyway? It creeps me out. What?"  
  
Illyria had been looking at her with her head cocked and a baffled look in her eyes. "What?" Faith repeated herself."  
  
"Why does everyone call me a smurf?" Illyria asked.  
  
Faith stood there silently for a moment and then burst out laughing. Buffy and Willow did likewise. Illyria jumped backwards as if to avoid the dangerous swipe of a blade, did a three - hundred and sixty degree spin to look at all of them, and then looked even more confused than ever. "What is it that you find humorous?"  
  
"N - Nothing," Faith gasped out and then stopped laughing but continued to smile. "You'd have to have a sense of humor to get it."  
  
"I wish to kill more Mochlackdangodenacks," Illyria said, dismissing the entire 'smurf' situation. Faith raised an eyebrow questioningly.  
  
"The what - nows?"  
  
"Mochlackdangodenacks," Willow repeated the name. "The purple - heads." She then proceeded to gesture at the dead Mochlackdangodenacks.  
  
"Ah, I get it."  
  
"I don't understand how you can even say the first two syllables without your tongue getting all twisty and knotty," Buffy said.  
  
"Takes practice," Willow replied with a grin.  
  
"And what's with all of the long names and such? Are demons just exceedingly fascinated by them?"  
  
"I guess it just seems more menacing to have long names. The uber - vamps had too short of a name," Willow declared.  
  
"I liked it," Buffy informed the other three. "It's nice to pronounce your foe's name. Like the Anointed One, the Master--"  
  
"The First!" Xander interrupted as he jogged up to them with an axe in one hand and an ice - cream cone in the other. Buffy eyed the ice - cream and then looked up at Xander.  
  
"What's with the ice - cream Xand?" Buffy asked with an eyebrow raised.  
  
"Huh? Oh. I like ice - cream. It's ice which just happens to be cream."  
  
"Seriously."  
  
Xander smiled. "I saved an ice - cream truck driver from his doom. He was trying to get out of town in his only form of transportation--an ice - cream truck--when a bunch of those things with the purple heads jumped him. I arrived, saved the day for the poor guy, he gave me ice - cream after I requested it jokingly, yada - yada, I have ice -cream and a bloody axe. Oh the horrors of ice - cream truck driving."  
  
Xander then thought of the dream he'd dreamt a long time ago in which he'd been driving an ice - cream truck with Anya and had seen Willow and Tara in the back all lesbian and beckoning him to come back and join them. It saddened him that both Anya and Tara were dead now. He decided it was best not to think of the two of them at the moment. He'd done enough thinking of them since their deaths and he was sick of the grieving.  
  
"You should know," Buffy said.  
  
"That I should."  
  
"You ready to go hunting for more Moch - things to kill?"  
  
"What are 'Moch - things'?" Xander asked.  
  
"Mochlackdangodenacks," Willow piped up helpfully. Xander's blank face remained blank.  
  
"Moch - whateys?"  
  
"The purple heads," Willow grumbled, a little disappointed she was the only one of the three Scoobies to know that a Mochlackdangodenack was. Xander's face lit up with comprehension.  
  
"Ohhh. I know what those are."  
  
"You should. We've only been fighting them for the past… two days?"  
  
"No, one really. We arrived on Wednesday and, despite the fact that it's now Friday, we've only been around for one day in the literal sense of twenty - four hours." Xander finished and then looked around the others. "And in answer to the question that started the whole name thing, no, I don't want to go hunting for more of the Moch - things as you so eloquently put it. I've done enough fighting for now. I'll gladly kill some with you later."  
  
"You'd think it'd be more hectic," Faith stated.  
  
"Think what would be more hectic?" Willow asked.  
  
"The Apocalypse," she replied. "I heard the Master Vamp incident ended with Buffy dying temporarily. Then a year later and Angel dies. A year after that you're blowing up the school after attempting to kill me. Two years later you're battling a god. After that Willow's the enemy and after that we're battling an army of uber - vamps. As far as apocalypses go, this one is pretty mild."  
  
"Thank you for stirring up a bunch of bad memories," Xander said. "But I see your point. Things are going really slowly here Buffy."  
  
"I've noticed. And you forgot one apocalypse Faith, the big multi - headed demon in the school. That one was pretty bad, too. Too bad you missed out on it Xander."  
  
Xander smiled and chuckled. Little did they know he had battled demons and dead people to deactivate a bomb that would've kill the lot of them. Of course, he hadn't deactivated the bomb, he had scared a dead guy into doing it by telling him that the bomb would kill him so fully that he wouldn't be able to be brought back to life again. Xander supposed that the guy had gotten out of town afterwards because he had never been seen again.  
  
What Xander didn't know was that the reason the guy hadn't been seen before was because he had been killed by Oz in his werewolf form. Oz, who was coincidentally being transported to L.A. as they spoke.  
  
"I was busy with… other things," Xander replied. Faith smiled. He sure had been busy with other things, and not just preventing the school from being blown up. He'd had sex with Faith that same night. Xander and Faith exchanged a look that was not unnoticed by Buffy and Willow.  
  
"I am familiar with this being," Illyria spoke up. The others turned to her and saw a man standing before her.  
  
Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Faith were clueless as to who it was that was standing there.  
  
"Angel ordered him assassinated," Illyria continued. Immediately the four behind her jumped to defensive positions. Xander's unfortunate mint ice - cream cone splattered to the ground and melted there through out the process of the day.  
  
Lindsey had wrapped a great deal of cloth around his mid section to stop the bleeding from the two wounds Lorne had dealt him the night before last. He was breathing unevenly and raggedly. He was hunched over and had a sword at his side.  
  
"Nice… to know… that at least one… of you got out… of there," he said. "How… many of the others… made it out?"  
  
"What happened to the empath?" Illyria demanded. She had grown accustomed to the green member of their group.  
  
"He's not… dead… if that's what you mean."  
  
"Why did he not succeed in killing you?"  
  
"Don't… have any idea… hit some vitals… should be dead."  
  
Illyria stretched out one hand and touched Lindsey's chest. "Your body is at room temperature. You are not among the living."  
  
"Figured that out… myself blue - face. My heart… stopped pumping last night after I… got this all tied around me."  
  
"Why do humans find it comical to comment on my blue hair and forehead?"  
  
"Because it's… funny."  
  
"Ah - hem." Illyria and Lindsey looked over at Buffy.  
  
"Hello," Lindsey greeted her. "You must be the Slayer. Let me rephrase that. You must be a Slayer. The only thing you deserve 'the' for now is that you're the Slayer that started the concept of multiple Slayers."  
  
"Who are you?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Name's… Lindsey."  
  
"Lindsey…?" Buffy said.  
  
Lindsey sighed. "Lindsey McDonald."  
  
Buffy cracked a smile while Willow and Xander chuckled. "You mean, like, Ronald McDonald or something?"  
  
That was too much and they all started giggling other than Lindsey and Illyria. Lindsey was used to the battering of his last name. He then turned back to Illyria, who didn't comprehend the punch - line to the Ronald McDonald reference considering she had no idea who that was.  
  
"Is… err… did Angel… survive?" Lindsey expected a 'no'. He was surprised when Illyria replied positively. "Well, then… who… died?"  
  
"Wesley," Illyria stated sadly. "He was killed by the sorcerer he attempted to assassinate."  
  
"No one else?"  
  
"Gunn is injured badly."  
  
"That's… it?" Lindsey exclaimed. "I had… no idea that there would be… so few… casualties."  
  
"I am surprised as well."  
  
"Why were… there so few?"  
  
"Uh… hello," Willow said and raised her hand slightly. "We arrived. Same with an entire army of Slayers and Initiative soldiers."  
  
"But… you were battling… the Senior Partners!"  
  
"They did not appear during the battle."  
  
Lindsey looked at Illyria stunned. "They were… supposed to. It's the final… apocalypse! They… are supposed to cause it."  
  
"Who ever said anything about it being the final apocalypse?" Buffy asked. "I heard from Giles who heard from a source that it was an apocalypse. I never heard anything about it being the final one."  
  
"The… prophecies… th - they say it is."  
  
"Do they?"  
  
"Yes. You thought this was just another avoidable apocalypse? Nuh - uh. This, as I've said before, is THE apocalypse. If the prophecies are correct, there is no stopping it."  
  
Buffy looked around at everyone. "Well… that sucks."  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Dawn stared out of her open tent flap at the passing soldiers.  
  
"What are you staring at Dawn?" a voice asked from behind her. Dawn didn't look back. She had been hearing that voice a lot in the last day. She just closed her eyes tight.  
  
"Go away. You aren't real. Go away. You aren't real. Go away. Get out."  
  
She opened her eyes after a moment of silence and then drew in breath sharply and fell off of her bed in an attempt to escape the vision before her.  
  
The soldiers were all dead. Their entrails hanging out and some limbs missing and strewn about. But… they were walking around. They were dead and they were walking around. It was like "The Night of the Living Dead" out there.  
  
Fire was spreading somewhere off in the depths of the city and she could see it above the building tops. The fire was so huge!  
  
She clasped her eyes tightly shut and started chanting that it wasn't real. When she opened her eyes the soldiers were normal and walking around. There was no fire in the distance. All was normal.  
  
But… all wasn't normal now was it?  
  
"No it isn't," that light voice spoke. It was a happy - sounding voice, but it was evil. Dawn could sense that it was. "All isn't normal. All isn't good. You're going insane."  
  
"No I'm not," she stated. She sat up. The ground beneath her was cool and hard. The tents had no bottom, so she was sitting on the road that the tent was set up on. "I'm not going insane. You aren't real. Stop talking to me."  
  
"Fine then, I'm not real."  
  
Suddenly a cold hand pressed lightly on Dawn's shoulder.  
  
"Then, who is it that's touching your shoulder?"  
  
Dawn screamed and twirled away from the hand. She looked around for whoever or whatever had been touching her and saw nothing. Then the voice chuckled softly.  
  
"I don't think you're ready to see me, my dear."  
  
"What are you?"  
  
"Just a friend Dawn. Just a friend. Albeit not a very good friend, but a friend to end no less."  
  
"Leave me alone."  
  
"Wish I could… but I can't."  
  
Suddenly the hand was back and rubbing her shoulder.  
  
"Please."  
  
"No."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because I've already chosen my side. You haven't. I want to ask you if you could choose mine instead of the one that will fail."  
  
"You mean Buffy's side."  
  
"Precisely."  
  
"No."  
  
"You should. I don't want to be pitted against you in battle."  
  
"No."  
  
"Please?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Come on."  
  
"NO! GET AWAY FROM ME!"  
  
Dawn tried to get away from the hand, but another held her in place. Suddenly the voice was right in her ear. She felt hot breath on her neck as it spoke and knew that there really was something there.  
  
"In case you didn't get the memo, this isn't one of those other, avoidable apocalypses. This is it. This is the one, final apocalypse. You'll suffer more than any of them… and I'll be there laughing when you are finally released into a very painful death."  
  
Then the hands and the voice and the breath were gone, leaving Dawn all alone sitting on the cold ground and hugging her chest. A few hours later Buffy appeared at the tent and asked her what was wrong and why she was sitting on the floor. Dawn looked up at Buffy and then replied simply.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()**  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. Lindsey's a bit more chockfull of sanity now, Lorne's still absent--ditto for Giles--, and Dawn's been given an entire section dedicated to her. Bob and Dick didn't make an appearance. Drusilla's somewhere around in there. The Jarlkarlones weren't mentioned this time around. And the dead men will be coming soon. Don't doubt that for a second.  
  
I enjoyed writing this chapter. I hope you enjoyed reading it.  
  
I'm setting up a lot of things way too fast. I'm only five chapters in!  
  
All questions will be answered at some point in the story. Maybe not for several chapters, but they will be answered. You can bet your fur on that. For those who don't know, "bet your fur" is a phrase from Stephen King's book "It".  
  
"If you need help, Don, help yourself to a balloon. They float. Down here we all float; pretty soon your friend will float, too." - Pennywise the Dancing Clown a.k.a. Bob Gray a.k.a. It "It" 


	6. Venacklondages, Angel and Lindsey, and S...

**Chapter Six:  
**  
**Venacklondages, Angel and Lindsey, and Spike's Confrontation  
**  
A spherical portal opened a hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean as Lorne shot Lindsey the first time. A second opened the second time Lindsey was dealt a bullet hole. Then, nearly a day later when Lindsey's heart stopped pumping and he technically died, a third portal opened. All three were connected to each other through a beam of energy which, when viewed from above or below, made the three into a triangle.  
  
Bob nor Dick nor anyone else had heard about what was happening now before its occurrence, but shortly afterwards they found out. Same with Angel, Buffy, and the rest of the two groups. Not to mention the Initiative's army.  
  
A fourth portal opened in the center of the triangle. This one wasn't spherical or visible. It was there though.  
  
An arm extended out of that invisible portal that had two claws, each seven inches long. The arm itself was eight feet and lined up and down that muscular, green arm were spikes that were each four inches in length.  
  
Followed by the arm, which appeared to be extending out of nowhere but thin air, was a shoulder that looked slightly human from a distance, but reptile up close because of the shiny scales.  
  
Then a head came out of that nothingness. There was nothing on that green head other than mouths--three mouths--each on top of one another. There were no teeth in those mouths; just spike - riddled tentacles that sliced and diced whatever entered the mouth.  
  
The head was a perfect sphere other than the one foot neck below it which was still half in and half out of the portal.  
  
What came after the neck was the other arm, which was perfectly identical to the first arm which had come out of whatever world the creature was emerging from.  
  
Then came the thing's chest. The chest was completely smooth and, unlike the arms, head, and neck, a bright blue. Ever seen those big - headed, stick - bodied aliens that are shown so much on TV and in movies? The mid - section of this being was just like the mid - section of those aliens. And the chest was only two feet deep, which was exceptionally small for such a large demon. The back had a line running down the middle of it that most humans would assume was the spine protruding outwards. It wasn't. In fact it was the only vein that connected the lower - body and the upper - body of the demon. And boy was it THICK! Three human hearts could've gone through that thing without causing a clog.  
  
The plastic - like material that made up the rest of the thing's mid - section was strong enough to keep it from snapping like a twig under the weight of its arms and head and then some. And then a lot of some.  
  
Under that was the thing's two, green legs. Each was a good ten feet long which, when added to the rest of the creatures' height, made the whole height twenty - five feet. The legs were equally as featureless as the creature's mid - section, but the feet. Oh, my the FEET. They had seven toes each. And each toe had a foot - long claw. Each claw was yellow and glass - like. The bone - structure was cartilaginous. For those who don't know, cartilage is the alternate to bone which makes up one's nose.  
  
The cartilage made the scaly skin texture bumpy and uneven. But the feet were thin. Instead of being hulking giants like Godzilla's feet, they were thin dwarfs like human feet.  
  
As soon as it was all out of the portal, the twenty - five foot giant plummeted to the sparkly water's surface, which was green as well.  
  
When it hit the water it gave a grunt of displeasure at the sudden change of the surrounding environment's texture and then adjusted. Webs sprung up between its clawed fingers and toes to best suit the environment, and then it started swimming towards land. It could see perfectly. Unlike humans, it needed no eyes. Real sight needs none. And it needs no light either. This thing did not see by light reflection like pretty much every animal with eyesight does, it saw the actual object not tampered by light in its mind.  
  
Then, another one of them began to emerge from the portal. This one was exactly the same. Just as the one after it was. And the one after that. And the one after that. And the one after that. And so on. The total tally of the creatures to come out of that portal was eleven. All of them just as willing and able to kill and plunder as the next.  
  
All eleven of them were headed straight towards Los Angeles.  
  
What were they called? Venacklondages, of course.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Angel sat in his tent, which had a sun proof outer layer so that he wouldn't burst into flames, and drank his cup of warm pig's blood. It had been a while since he had gotten so much time to himself. Especially during the day.  
  
As he sat out of the sunlight Angel reflected upon his decision to join Wolfram and Hart. He wondered if it had been such a wise decision after all. What good had been accomplished? Well, other than getting a foot hold and being able to fight back at the apocalypse. Then there was the destruction of the members of the Black Thorn. Not to mention being able to save some people for a little bit before the whole attorney agency thing hit home and they had to focus on doing other things. So… it was a good decision in the long run, even if they had gone through hell before the good had come out of it.  
  
One thing Angel did regret was the fact that he wouldn't see Lorne again. It wasn't Lorne's line of work anymore, he supposed. That didn't make the loss of the funny, chock full of personality empath any less overbearing, however. Then there was also not getting the chance to kill Lindsey himself. That was a bitch.  
  
Spike was five tents over and probably drinking himself drunk as whatever would be a good noun for that simile. Angel found himself wondering why he was thinking about Spike at that moment. Little did he know that Spike was going through a powerful ordeal at that moment, or that Buffy and the others were also thinking about Spike.  
  
Angel missed those tampered windows that blocked the sun's radiation in Wolfram and Hart. Those had been great.  
  
He raised his glass and took another sip of his pig's blood. It wasn't the best pig's blood he'd ever had, but it was decent. Decent enough to drink and not wince anyway.  
  
Suddenly Buffy's voice floated to his ears.  
  
"Knock, knock Angel," she said. He could see her shadow cast on the tent. "Move to a shaded place because I'm coming in in five… four…"  
  
Angel scurried behind the large bed that was put there for him and four seconds later Buffy opened the tent's flap and stepped in. He could smell and hear others come in, too. At least three or four. Then the flap was sealed back up and Angel emerged from behind the bed.  
  
He had expected Buffy, Willow, and Xander. Who he hadn't expected was the man standing in front of the others. The man he had ordered assassinated.  
  
Lindsey flashed him a smile that showed off his blood - caked teeth. "Hey Angel."  
  
Angel stood there speechless for a moment or two. "I thought I killed you. Err… thought Lorne had killed you. But nonetheless…"  
  
"Well, I guess it didn't work out like you planned," Lindsey replied and then his smile disintegrated as though he had just remembered he had been aligned with this vampire during the last few hours of his technical life.  
  
"Did you kill him?" Angel couldn't help the anger that seeped into his voice. He was full of anger, confusion, and worry for Lorne's well - being.  
  
"No. Just the opposite in fact. Touch me. I'm dead as a door knob."  
  
Angel, a little uncomfortable at an initial interpretation of the suggestion to touch Lindsey, declined the offer.  
  
"What happened?" he asked hesitantly.  
  
"We don't know," Xander said. Then, when Angel and Lindsey looked over at him, he smiled uncomfortably and said: "Sorry. Go on."  
  
"Just like the exceedingly annoying pirate over there just said, I have not the slightest of an idea what happened."  
  
"No," Angel said. His irritation and impatience showing up. "I mean, what happened to Lorne?"  
  
"Well, I went a little psycho after he shot me twice and ran after him with his own gun and emptied the clip into the air. He didn't chase me for some reason. I'm not sure where he is now. He probably got the hell out of Dodge."  
  
Angel absorbed this information silently and then searched in his frustrated mind for something to say next.  
  
"So… you're dead?" he asked.  
  
"Stone cold dead. Not stiff as a board, though. Not a vampire. Not a zombie to the best of my knowledge. I'm just a walking dead body I suppose."  
  
"There's gotta be an explanation for this," Angel continued. "These things don't just happen. You don't just see something like this and then ignore its pure necessity for a purpose like you guys seem to be doing. Is Wes--" Angel shut his eyes and then opened them again, a bit calmer now, and speaking slower. "I mean, is Giles working on it?"  
  
Buffy noticed his slip up and was a bit slow to answer. "Oh! Umm… Y-Yeah. He's working on it. We went there first for a little while."  
  
"Okay. That's good. Good call." Angel then looked around himself. Usually in this type of situation he'd sit down and start working on something at his desk. Now he had no desk and he had nothing to work on. All he had was to do was think things over between sunrise and sunset. "Umm… Is that all? Nothing more to report?"  
  
Buffy looked around nervously. "Yeah. Other than the extermination is going really well that's it."  
  
"Alright. Then go give Lindsey here to Giles for observation and examination."  
  
"Yeah. Come on Lindsey."  
  
Angel quickly ducked behind his bed as Buffy, without thinking, opened the flap of the tent.  
  
Buffy subsequently hissed and apologized.  
  
"It's alright. It's okay."  
  
The four of them began to leave when Angel called Buffy back.  
  
"What?" she asked.  
  
"C-Could you get me some more blood?"  
  
Buffy was silent for a second. "Yeah, sure. You're the boss."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
Then Buffy left and closed up the tent. Angel clambered back to the chair he had been sitting in earlier and sat down in it. Lindsey was dead, but he was still walking around and acting like Lindsey. How strange? Angel wondered if Lindsey was telling the truth about Lorne's condition, or if Lindsey was lying and Lorne was dead.  
  
He hoped that Lorne was alright. He also hoped that Lindsey's undead form was for the better and not for the worse. Because if it was for the worse… well… they didn't even know what they were battling yet other than the Mochlackdangodenacks, and there had to be more than just those. If Lindsey is aligned with one of those other things, then things could turn out very bad.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Spike slammed the Jack Daniel's bottle down on the coffee table in front of his bed so hard that it shattered. Bits and pieces of glass slashed his hand wide open and spilled blood out onto the wooden table.  
  
Spike didn't notice or care. He was pissed. He was fuming. He was positively pure - D angry. Red face and flaring eyes. Yes sir was he pissed.  
  
Buffy hadn't come to talk to him again since their encounter at the medical tent. There she had told him that it could never work out again for them. That it was totally over. That he was out of her life. That he was an asshole for not telling her he was alive when he had been resurrected.  
  
Wesley was dead. He had been buried the day before. Now he had to be trapped inside of a small, cramped tent instead of traipsing about the hallways of the Wolfram and Hart building. He had liked it there. Sure it had been evil, but he had enjoyed the ability to be out and about during the daylight's increasingly long life now that it was summer.  
  
He hadn't been in contact with anyone other than the Initiative soldier who had shown him to his quarters for many hours.  
  
He had been a little irritated before, but now that he was drunk he was fully pissed off.  
  
"Like I ever wanted to get back with you, you slobbering little… little… LITTLE BITCH!" Spike stood up so quickly that his knees knocked the coffee table over. "Tell me off. Well… well… I'll s-show you who the bloody boss is, I'll tell you that. Tell me how it is. I just died saving your ass and THIS IS MY THANKS!? WHY AM I NOT SHOWERED IN SMILES AND 'THANK'S AND 'NICE JOB'S!? WHAT DID I DO WRONG!? BLOODY DAMNED HELL!"  
  
Spike kicked over his shelf of liquor and alcohol. All of the bottles smashed when it hit the ground and the alcohol poured out onto the ground. Once again Spike did not notice or care.  
  
He then walked over to a mirror and studied himself in it. He was overwhelmed in surrealism. Was this him? Was that unkempt, crazy bastard staring into his eyes him? He didn't think it could be. What had happened to him? What had he become? Then he started freaking out from looking at his reflection. It didn't feel like it was his reflection staring at him anymore. Then he realized the stupidity of his fear and smiled. He was too drunk to really notice that, considering he was a vampire, he should have no reflection.  
  
"Ooh, ooh, you're gonna attack yourself! You're gonna attack yourself!"  
  
Spike then laughed heartily. It stopped when his reflection thrust forward at him.  
  
Spike leapt backwards and stumbled over the shelf he had kicked over. He fell to the ground and his bleeding hand slammed into the ground harder than the rest of him, successfully sending a great wave of pain through his body. He shouted out in pain.  
  
He scurried to his feet and looked back at the mirror. He saw the back of his head in it.  
  
"What the bloody hell?" Spike murmured. Then the back of his head began to turn. It began to turn around to look at him. "No," Spike said. "No. No, don't. Don't!"  
  
It was still turning. "NO!"  
  
When it had completed its turn, Spike found himself looking into the eyes of his first murder. It was Johanna Delacroix. A hooker that had possessed the misfortune of meeting him in an alley. He had killed her fast and hungrily.  
  
"St-Stop it now!" Spike demanded. "Stop trying to intimidate me by showing me the people I've killed! Go down five tents and do that to Angel. He'll feel it. He'll feel it a whole hell of a lot more than me."  
  
Then it did change form. It changed into Drusilla. When it spoke, however, it was the voice of Buffy.  
  
"Hello Spike," Drusilla slash Buffy greeted him. "You've got a lot on your mind now don't you?"  
  
"What d'ya want?" Spike asked. "First of all, actually, what the hell are you?"  
  
Drusilla slash Buffy chuckled. "Well I can't think of a compelling lie to tell you. If I tell you I'm not a threat, you obviously won't believe that. If I tell you that you'll lose it certainly won't be menacing because you've heard it so many times before. If I tell you I have a monkey in my pants… that's just plain ridiculous."  
  
Suddenly a monkey crawled up on Drusilla slash Buffy's shoulder. It didn't look real; it looked computer generated. "I suppose it's true enough though."  
  
"What… are… you?" Spike repeated himself slowly with his speech being a bit more slurred this time around.  
  
"Drunk are we? Well, that's fun.  
  
"I need to tell you something, Spike. Here goes noth--"  
  
Suddenly Drusilla slash Buffy looked at the monkey on her shoulder, who was now dancing like the computer generated baby on that TV show "Ally McBeal" and started laughing and clapping. "Isn't he rich?"  
  
"What the hell kind of villain are you?" Spike asked in a high, slightly panicked voice. His cockeyed accent was slurring badly now.  
  
"Villain?" Drusilla slash Buffy asked, sounding honestly confused. "I said that you wouldn't believe that I didn't pose a threat. I didn't say that I did. I'm just sort of sitting on a high stool and watching you guys duel it all out. It's quite fun, really. Really it is a lot of fun. You should try it some time. Namely when you die… again. I'm just an elderly being who doesn't like to show his true form. I'm just here to tell you that there will be many more dead bodies by the end of all of this unless you intervene with their deaths."  
  
"Who?" Spike asked.  
  
"Look at him dance. You can almost hear that song in the back ground. I love this monkey!"  
  
"WHO THE HELL IS GOING TO DIE!?" Spike roared at Drusilla slash Buffy in the mirror. A couple miles away Drusilla suddenly jerked her head to the side as if bashed by a baseball bat and began thinking of Spike.  
  
"You mean, unless you can stop it?"  
  
"Yes you bloody bastard. And if you don't make that monkey stop dancing I'll kill it."  
  
"Stop dancing Fido. Sit Fido, sit. Good boy. So, back to business. The first death you might want to stop is Lorne's."  
  
"Lorne!?"  
  
"Yep. You want to see how he'll die unless you can get to him first?"  
  
"Why do you even need to ask me that? And that monkey's staring at me."  
  
"Go away Fido. So… here's The Death of Your Comrades Act One. Enjoy."  
  
Suddenly Spike was staring into a blank mirror. Drusilla slash Buffy was gone. He began to think it was just a hallucination, then a splitting head ache that would've made Angel spare a thought for Cordelia and Doyle bashed into his brain.  
  
In the city's outskirts Connor pulled over his vehicle and considered what he was doing. Even he was thinking of Spike now. Even though Connor only knew Spike from a few minutes' worth of conversation he was still thinking of him.  
  
"Aw, screw it," Connor muttered under his breath. "If the world's gonna end, where better to be than with Dad?"  
  
Then he did an illegal U - turn and sped back towards Los Angeles. Luckily for him no cops had been around to pull him over and no civilians had been driving through that might accidentally slam into him.  
  
And Spike screamed as Connor did this. He screamed out in pain he had never experienced before as his mind was thrown out of the vision like a sword out of its sheath.  
  
"Oh good Christ," he gasped. "Oh God."  
  
And then he puked. Moments later he fell unconscious to the ground and for a good five hours he laid there undisturbed to dream.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()  
**  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you liked this chapter, too. I've gotten quite a few reviews for this story. Never dreamed I'd get so many. Thanks to you all. You compel me to write more.  
  
There'll be some more chapters that set up even more storylines, then the storylines will start carrying themselves out. The apocalypse is going on, but it is relatively calm. It's the "deep breath before the plunge" to quote Gandalf from "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King". There'll be lots of action and some deaths later on. I'm debating on whether or not to kill any of the major characters. I'm not certain how you people will react to that.  
  
Anyway, that's a good - bye until next chapter. See you later. And this is a thanks to izzygirlxp for reminding me that vampires don't have reflections. My bad. I changed it so that Spike is really drunk and doesn't realize that either.  
  
"Comical villains are much better than villains that try to be menacing yet really aren't." - me 


	7. Sounds, a Slayer, Jarlkarlones, and Kidn...

**Chapter Seven:**  
  
**Sounds, a Slayer, Jarlkarlones, and Kidnapped**  
  
Lorne was beginning to worry whether or not he'd catch back up with Lindsey. He should've killed Lindsey immediately, no hesitation. Instead he had decided to feel guilty and let the bastard slip through his fingers. If Lindsey had already found Angel--assuming, of course, that Angel was still alive--then one of them was probably dead.  
  
Lorne was feeling horrible about not completing his job. The only job he was given. The easiest job that any of them had been given to be frank about it.  
  
The city of Los Angeles was a strange and alien place now. Even stranger than last year when the sun had been blotted out. Even more alien than it had seemed when he had first arrived from his home dimension.  
  
Lorne began whistling that old song "Jeepers Creepers". The sound echoed out through the silent buildings and back to him. He was amazed that the city was so quiet. Hadn't the Apocalypse started already? Hadn't that army of demons been unleashed on them all? It must've been because he had heard the battle the night he had attempted to kill Lindsey. He had heard it a couple of times earlier in this day and the last day, too.  
  
He had a sinking feeling that he was missing out on everything, that the Apocalypse was either already stopped, or already accomplished. He was afraid, suddenly, that he would never see another living, civilized being as long as he lived because they were all dead.  
  
He wondered if Spike was dead or not. He wondered what exactly Spike had done. He also wondered why he was thinking about Spike. He had just been thinking about the Apocalypse and such a minute ago. Why the sudden change in direction of his train of thought?  
  
For several minutes he attempted to get Spike out of his head. The effects of Spike's confrontation were much worse on him than the others. He just couldn't stop the continuous line of thoughts about Spike.  
  
After those several minutes it passed and his train of thought was back to normal despite having been momentarily lost.  
  
"Jeepers, creepers, where'd you get those peepers?" he sang silently under his breath. "Jeepers, creepers, where'd you get those eyes?"  
  
He kept walking through the darkening day. It was around this time that Bob and Drusilla had made their first move at the city limits. It was also at this time that Oz began to change again far outside of Los Angeles. Lorne kept walking, unaware of these events, and kept whistling and, at some points, singing.  
  
Soon the sun had fallen below the horizon and the full moon was shining brightly down on the world along with thousands, perhaps millions, perhaps billions of sparkling stars. Lorne was grateful for the full moon; there were no street lights anymore and no passing cars with their high beams glaring at the night. It was still hard to see due to the lack of great light, but it was made much easier because of the moon.  
  
Lorne stopped at an apartment complex's stoop and sat down on it. He had been walking most of the day and needed a rest. Not to mention something to drink and something to eat.  
  
"Should've popped 'im when you had the chance Lorney - boy," he murmured to himself. "Should've made sure he was dead. Ah… too late for that all now. Just gotta keep moving Lorne. Just gotta keep your feet going. Feets don't fail me now. Gotta find him soon."  
  
It wasn't a very good speech, and it certainly wasn't motivating. If it weren't for the following he would've fallen asleep on that stoop and lost a good seven or eight hours.  
  
Before he fell asleep, however, he heard a rhythmic tapping sound coming from close by. He stared out into the darkness as the sound came closer, and closer, and closer.  
  
"Oh," Lorne whispered to himself. "No."  
  
He knew that sound. He had heard it once shortly after his birth in his home dimension. It wasn't a common creature to stumble upon, nor was it a nonviolent one either. If you saw it your body would be torn in half and trampled before you could think to move out of the thing's view.  
  
"No, no, no. You guys are here? No, no, no."  
  
Lorne ran into the apartment complex and hid next to the door. He didn't make a lot of the noise in the process and, thank God for small favors, the creatures he was hiding from had very poor hearing.  
  
The tapping sound grew quite a bit louder, and then it decreased in volume. It was leaving him alone. Luckily it hadn't seen him. Lorne let out a sigh of relief. There was another reason to find Angel. He needed to be warned about those things.  
  
He needed to be warned about the Jarlkarlones.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Gunn was walking down the darkening street. Not too long ago he had found himself thinking of Spike for no reason at all. That had passed and he had gone back to his business.  
  
While he was walking down said darkening street, he was rubbing his stomach slightly. The wound had been stitched up and pain killers had been administered, but it still hurt, even if only vaguely.  
  
Initiative soldiers were bustling about. He could hear distant gun shots. The Mochlackdangodenacks had apparently not been as strong as they had all initially assumed. And the army had only possessed one dragon and one of those big things other than the Mochlackdangodenacks. A pathetic excuse for an army when you're going against a bunch of Slayers, two possible Champions, an army of soldiers trained for killing demons, probably the most powerful witch you'll ever find, and an ex - god, not to mention a street - fighter like himself. The bastards didn't know who they were up against. Gunn chuckled a bit at that. Thousands of demons and it constituted as a weak - ass army. That had to be a first.  
  
"Uh, excuse me?" a feminine voice called from behind him. Gunn turned around quickly enough to send a fresh wave of pain over himself. He tried not to show that the pain was affecting him so.  
  
"Yeah?" Gunn called back. He looked at the woman who had called. She was young--couldn't have been older than nineteen--and blonde. He liked her already. She was beautiful, too. Gunn flashed a less - than - charming smile that the young woman found strikingly funny. She struggled to keep her face straight.  
  
"Hey, you wouldn't happen to know where I could find Buffy, would you?" she asked hopefully, still fighting back a threatening and impolite smile.  
  
"Buffy?" Gunn asked. "Last time I saw her she was heading to Angel's tent over on the other side of the base. She could probably be with that old English guy with the glasses now, though."  
  
"Giles," she informed him.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"The old English guy with the glasses' name is Giles."  
  
"Yeah. Can you make it to his quarters? And by quarters I mean a disgusting tent full of musty, old books about demons. Not the most pleasant of places to be."  
  
He thought his joke had cracked her up, but she was really smiling because of his smile from earlier.  
  
"I know where Giles is," she replied. "Me and the other Slayers have only had to listen to him blabber on about the Apocalypse six times since coming here."  
  
"You're a Slayer?" Gunn exclaimed.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Cool. What's your name?"  
  
"Monique Ortiz. You?"  
  
"Charles Gunn. Just call me 'Gunn', though. Were you involved with that whole the First thing last year?"  
  
"Nah. They just found me and explained to me what I was two months ago. Staking vampires and battling demons isn't the best way to keep a healthy social life."  
  
"I figured."  
  
"It can be hell keeping it a secret. Especially when you need to go away for God knows how long to Los Angeles for seemingly no reason at all. This Apocalypse sucks."  
  
"Huh."  
  
" 'Huh' what?"  
  
"You don't seem scared."  
  
"Scared of what?"  
  
"The end of the world."  
  
"That? No. I've read up on all of the other apocalypses in the last decade or so. Seems that they've all been stopped with few casualties. So, I figure, why should this one be any different?"  
  
The two of them were now walking back into the depths of the base side - by - side.  
  
"Good point. But I'd still be scared if I were you."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because it's an apocalypse that hasn't disappeared into the forgotten past. It might not be avoided."  
  
Monique looked up at Gunn, then back to where she was walking. "Didn't think about it that way. I don't think it's best to think about things like that."  
  
The tents were more crowded together now in the street and the sidewalks, exposed by the battery - operated street lights lining the street. Giles's tent was two blocks away.  
  
"Probably right about that Monique. And I don't want to cause you a lot of worry. Sorry about that."  
  
"No, it's okay. I don't mind a bit of worrying. I don't worry about things I can't control."  
  
"An admiral characteristic. I couldn't stop worrying the first time I stumbled over my first apocalypse."  
  
He didn't want to tell her that this was the fabled THE Apocalypse, not AN Apocalypse. That would dampen her spirits more than likely. It had his for a few hours.  
  
"If I die, I die. Didn't have a lot to live for anyway. My death wouldn't be a great loss."  
  
"I thought you were Slayer."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Then what are you talking about not being a great loss? All Slayers are worth a hell of a lot to the good in the world."  
  
"Nice little theory you've got there. One flaw, though. Potential Slayers and Slayers alike were dropping like flies last year. The world hasn't gotten much worse since. It's gotten better, actually. Until now that is."  
  
Gunn opened his mouth to say something more, but Buffy showed up at that moment.  
  
"Hey Gunn. Hey Monique. What's your report?"  
  
"Team A went over areas 1 - A, 1 -B, and 1 - C. They found a group of the demons in 1 - A and exterminated them. Team B went over areas 2 - A, 2 - B, and 2 - C. None were found. Team C and Team D have not reported back. Team E lost half of its soldiers in area 5 - D, where an exceptionally large group was located. No Slayer casualties were suffered."  
  
"That's good to know," Buffy replied. "What about Teams F through Z?"  
  
"Joanna and Naomi report for them."  
  
"Oh. Right."  
  
Gunn, feeling uncomfortable standing there and doing nothing, went off on a stroll around the base.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
The moon was out now. It was full. Oz stared at it as he shrieked in pain as his body contorted and morphed into its Lycanthrope form. He begged it to stop. He wanted control again. He wanted his hard - earned control back.  
  
He heard the truck screech to a stop and heard as the driver hurried out of the seat.  
  
Toby was carrying his tranquilizer rifle and was running around to the back of the truck when suddenly the Lycanthrope leapt out at him.  
  
"Shit!" he shouted as he was hurled to the ground. The weight of the werewolf was lifted off of him and he heard the Lycanthrope charging away. Toby got to his feet and saw the werewolf was at least a hundred yards away now, dirt and grass being pulled up by its claws as it charged across the flat terrain. The highway they had been driving down was barren, so it was just him and this Oz.  
  
Toby aimed his rifle at the Lycanthrope. He tracked its progress with his scope. He pulled the trigger and the tranquilizer dart shot out of the rifle's muzzle with great speed. Less than a second later it was injecting its drugs into Oz's body.  
  
Oz came to a stop first not because of the drugs, but because he suddenly thought of a blonde vampire that his werewolf mind was not familiar with. Then he fell to the ground and sent up a cloud of dust.  
  
A minute or so later Toby reached him and stood over him with his rifle slung over his shoulder. "You son of a bitch," he muttered. He was thoroughly dreading the experience of dragging Oz back to the truck, but the sooner it was done the better.  
  
"You could just pick 'im up like before," a cockeye accented voice said from behind Toby. Toby turned around slowly, believing he knew who it was.  
  
"Hello, dick."  
  
"Isn't that just typical of you? Use my name to your advantage to insult me." Richard then chuckled. He looked like Spike now, not that Toby knew that. "It's a bit obvious, though. But, I must state, once again, that you… are not my friend."  
  
Suddenly the vision of Spike put a tooth pick in its mouth and started chewing on it loudly. "Are you a Stephen King reader?"  
  
"No," Toby replied simply, and a little impatiently.  
  
"Then you wouldn't understand this reference to ol' Beaver from "Dreamcatcher" whood ya?"  
  
"Are you gonna help me with this werewolf here or not?"  
  
"Guess you wouldn't. Anywho, he'll be light to you now. You might want to hurry. Some stuff has already started up without ya."  
  
Toby picked up the werewolf, once again baffled at how the huge thing could weigh so little, and then took one step forward before stopping. Richard's jaw was hanging open and the tooth pick had dropped out. Richard was staring behind Toby.  
  
Toby turned around slowly and when he saw what Richard saw his face drained of all color.  
  
The light wasn't good enough for him to see anything but the shape of the monster that was standing not too far away, but the shape was enough. It had dozens of tentacles whipping the air around its twelve foot body. It had three heads like the Cerberus from Greek mythology. Four muscular arms spread out from the center of its body and each had five joints instead of one like a human arms. Each of the arms was tipped with a three - clawed, large hand that looked very prepared to slash him into four pieces with one swipe. No, not prepared; they looked just itching to do so. And then the legs. The six legs that were all extending from its bottom. In the middle of the six legs was a tail that had a large club at the end of its twenty - foot stretch.  
  
Toby knew what it was, but he didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to admit that he was staring at a Jarlkarlone.  
  
He spun around back to Richard, his legs feeling like they would give out beneath him at any moment. Richard looked at him.  
  
"RUN!" he hollered, and Toby did so, werewolf in arms.  
  
It seemed to take a million years for him to reach his truck when it was really only a half minute. He tossed Oz into the back of the truck and scrambled into the driver's seat. He could feel the ground shaking as the Jarlkarlone advanced on them. He struggled to turn his keys and the engine sputtered to life.  
  
Toby slammed down on the gas pedal while throwing a glance out the window at the Jarlkarlone. Excuse me, now it was Jarlkarlone_**s**_. Three or four had joined the first… and they were all barreling at his truck bellowing war cries at the air. Their feet made terrible tapping sounds that were less than unbearable.  
  
Toby had a fleeting image of the Jarlklarlone wearing tap - dancing shoes and dancing on a stage that nearly made him smile.  
  
Then his truck was speeding down the empty highway away from the growing number of pursuing Jarlkarlones. Thirty - five was the final number of them that eventually joined the following group… and three - hundred and sixty - two was the number of those that didn't.  
  
By the time morning came rolling around there were a hundred more on Earth.  
  
Meanwhile… again…  
  
Connor hit the brakes and his car came to a screeching halt. His headlights shone upon a burly man wearing a leather jacket, blue jeans, and a white tee - shirt beneath the jacket. His head was bald like a cue - ball, he had beard stubble, and his mustache was a goatee.  
  
The man was standing in the middle of the road with blood spattered all over the left side of his face. His eyes were glazed over a little and he looked like a zombie. Connor rolled down his window and leaned out with a concerned--but not frightened; he had dealt with a lot of things that were worse than this--look on his face.  
  
"Sir?" he called out.  
  
"What?" the man replied.  
  
"Do you need help?"  
  
"Does who need what now?"  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"What's a Bejorknal?" the man asked, sounding quite curious. Connor then realized that this man must be in shock… or something along those lines anyway.  
  
Connor opened his car door and stepped out into the bitterly cold night air. He cautiously approached the man. "What's your name?"  
  
"I like cookies with asteroids."  
  
"Well, I like cookies with asteroids, why don't you get into the back of my car and tell me what happ--"  
  
Connor stopped abruptly. There was someone behind him. Actually, there were two people behind him. He could sense them. Some of his supernatural abilities had come back to him with along with his memories.  
  
"THE MAN'S A GENIOUS WITH SPRINKLES AND NUTS!" the man with the goatee and dazed look in his eyes shrieked and then ran off into the night like some sort of superhero… but a superhero that ran like a woman with arthritis.  
  
Connor spun around and found himself looking at two forms. One was a beautiful woman who looked like her mind was in a different place, and he could tell that one was a vampire. The other was a tall man wearing patched up clothes that looked like they included bits and pieces of clothing from every time period of human civilization. He wasn't quite sure what this one was. The man seemed more human than the woman, but he also seemed like a demon.  
  
"It's Darla's son!" the vampire exclaimed, not seeming very interested. "He's got his mother's eyes… but his father's hair. That's bad. I detest that vampire's hair."  
  
"Hello Connor," the man said simply. "I'm Bob. This is Drusilla. She's your sister seeing as how your father sired her. Say 'hello brother, dear' Dru."  
  
"Hello brother, dear."  
  
Connor, being completely and utterly confused and not quite certain if he was hallucinating or not, raised his hand in greeting slowly.  
  
"It seems your brother here was heading back into Los Angeles to help Angel out with his apocalypse. Can that be allowed?"  
  
"No…"  
  
"Then it's settled. Connor. Come with us and we'll let you live for a bit."  
  
Connor immediately took a defensive position. "I'm not coming with you."  
  
"You probably don't know if I'm human or demon, do you? To be frank with you, I'm a human and not a demon. I may have a little demon in me, which has allowed me to endure living a good two million years, but I'm human. If I were a normal human you could take me, but I have that little extra bit of demon in me that makes it quite the opposite. See, I can take you now. If you do refuse to come with me and your sister, I'll snap your neck like a twig."  
  
"Why do you want to take me alive?"  
  
"Mostly to enrage your father. I heard he sacrificed his entire relationship with you so that you could have a good life. Did you ever wonder if he actually did that to get you the hell out of his life? Just a suggestion Connor."  
  
Bob then climbed in behind the wheel of Connor's car and Drusilla got into the driver's side. Connor, now moving not of his own free will, walked over to the back door and climbed in. Bob looked back at him and smiled. "Good boy."  
  
Then Connor's seat belt floated over his body and trapped him in the seat. Then the back doors both locked simultaneously. Connor didn't have a button to push in order to accomplish that.  
  
Bob had many great abilities. He could move things and he could control people for a certain amount of time. He could even alter matter if he set his mind to it. He could make the ground turn to a liquid substance if he wanted to.  
  
The car's wheels began spinning as Bob stepped on the gas pedal. Then they moved faster when he made a connection with them in his mind.  
  
The car sped into Los Angeles. Connor was now in the hands of the enemy.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()**  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. Hope you enjoyed this one. It took me two days to write. I don't have much to put down here other than to thank my reviewers (in particular Violet SS and Imzadi, along with Tariq and DZ Dillinger, sorry to angelcordy fan, but I won't include dead characters in this story). That's a so long until next chapter. Thank you London (don't ask)! Good night!  
  
"Heh, heh. Check it out Butthead. This chick has three boobs!" - Beavis "Beavis and Butthead" 


	8. The Dead Men

**Chapter Eight:  
****The Dead Men**  
  
Ashley Findale was pushing her way through the crowded grocery store to the cash register up front. There was a long line at the cash register and Ashley took her spot at the end of it. Immediately others filed into line behind her.  
  
She lived in Benwitch, a small town a few miles out of Los Angeles city limits. She was purchasing milk and a box of cheap cereal that tasted exactly like Froot Loops, yet wasn't. Ever since the evacuation of Los Angeles things had been mighty crowded around Benwitch. There were a bunch of houses for those people set up… but no one had apparently expected such a large evacuation so there was an overflow of evacuated individuals.  
  
Ashley had a couple of them living in her own house--the house was large enough to comfortably fit the new additions in luckily enough--while others had as many as four or five living with them.  
  
The line for the cash register dwindled to nearly nothing within fifteen minutes, but by that time Ashley had been rung up and had gotten out of there.  
  
The buildings in Benwitch were so small that some of the Los Angeles people were looking around like they were lost and confused. In a way they were. They lived in the world of sky scrapers and crime and just the city life. They had no business in a town like Benwitch.  
  
The transition must've upset them all quite a lot because several were babbling about demons and monsters. She had also heard something about the end of the world.  
  
Normally she would've just dismissed the sightings and gone about her daily business, but the evacuation of every single human being in Los Angeles and the extreme similarity of the reports suggested something major was happening, which, in effect, made dismissing the sightings and going about her daily business a bit more difficult. That scared her, let me tell you. That really did scare her. Not just that there was something going on, but that she actually almost BELIEVED that something was going on.  
  
Ashley swung the plastic bag which contained the cereal and the milk she had just bought inside from side to side continuously.  
  
The streets were crowded and she had to brush past several people roughly as she trudged through said streets. A helicopter zoomed by overhead and several cars blasted down the road. The town was much more noisy than it used to be and Ashley hated it. Despised it.  
  
Sirens were blaring in the near distance. She had rarely ever heard sirens before now lest it was for a fire or an injured person. Who knew that a small town could turn into such a bustling place in the space of a day or two?  
  
The abrupt change had been a great shock to the system, but Ashley was adapting quickly. She was known for fast acclimatization. The same could not be said for Beatrice, her mother, or Darren, her father.  
  
She frowned at the thought of her most recent encounter with Beatrice. They had gone through a scuffle about her smoking and drinking. A bad one that had ended with Beatrice's left cheek flaring red. Ashley wanted to apologize for that. Beatrice hadn't deserved it. She was just doing her job as a parent and Ashley supposed she could understand and respect that.  
  
Unbeknownst to the unfortunate Ashley, she would never get the chance to apologize.  
  
The sun was burning into her retinas, so she threw up her arm to shield her eyes. That made her feel a little better. It made her feel as good as she could in such a situation as she was in.  
  
"Hey Ashley," a whispering voice called to her. Ashley looked in the direction of the voice, certain that whoever had just spoken was calling to another Ashley and that it was just a coincidence.  
  
That certainty was eliminated as she saw a man with a top hat and a bath robe pulled tight over his body staring at her with bleary, half - awake, bright blue eyes that were blood shot while smiling a smile that was bereft of teeth--well, I suppose that isn't fair considering he had one yellow and chipped tooth hanging on in the back of his mouth.  
  
"Hey Ashley," the man repeated before raising a scraggly hand and signaling her to come to him with a pale, skinny index finger. "I need to have a word with you."  
  
"Who are you?" Ashley asked cautiously. She didn't have to worry about strange people before now. Especially those who looked half - insane and knew her name.  
  
"Joey Bonduck," Joey informed her. "I do enjoy watching you."  
  
Suddenly Ashley was certain that this man was dangerous. It didn't emanate off of him like it seemed to in movies and television shows; it was a paranoia of her mind. When someone says 'I do enjoy watching you' you really don't rush to them chock full of trust. She began to walk away… and that walking… boy was it a bit faster than average!  
  
"You're making a big mistake Ashley!" Joey's voice shot to her ears. His voice seemed as loud as the sonic boom that results from one of those military planes that flies faster than the speed of sound. Did anyone else hear it? It certainly didn't appear so. "Don't go home!"  
  
Suddenly Ashley found herself looking at Joey, who had appeared in front of her out of thing air. A woman's arm passed right through him with what appeared to be no effect. It was like a videogame glitch. When Joey spoke this time his voice was much quieter. His eyes now looked fully awake and scared.  
  
"Something big is about to happen, Ashley," he stated. "I don't want you here when it does happen. You have a mission. This mission involves things that you may not want to believe in, but you will have to."  
  
"What the hell are you?" Ashley asked. She then walked forward without waiting for an answer, expecting to walk through this hallucination. She found herself being grasped by the shoulders and held in place by the amazingly strong Joey Bonduck.  
  
"You have something that you need to do. Something that will aid in the war that's going on in Los Angeles."  
  
"What war?" Ashley exclaimed. No one heard her other than Joey.  
  
"What may, unfortunately, be the Final War. Take my word for it that you do not want to go home. Get out of town. Go to L.A. because you need to go there. For the good of mankind."  
  
Ashley hadn't even realized that she had dropped her plastic bag a good minute or so ago. All she was focusing on was the fact that this strange being who only she could see, hear, or feel was telling her that she was going to be of importance in a war. A war in Los Angeles.  
  
"Why don't you want me to go home?" she asked.  
  
Joey paused. "You… j - just don't go home, Ashley."  
  
"Is my family okay?"  
  
Joey took a longer time to answer this time. "Get out of town. Everyone here is going to be changed. Including your family."  
  
Ashley ducked out of Joey's grip and darted through the opening between his outstretched arm and his body. She then sprinted all of the way home. By the time she reached her house her feet were pulsing painfully and completely sore.  
  
The house looked alright. It didn't look like anything bad was happing, or even about to happen. She smiled and called her sanity into question as she entered the house. It was then that she realized she had lost the grocery bag.  
  
"Shit," she muttered under her breath as she closed the white, hardwood door behind her. She was in the dining room now. It was a tall, square room with a large, circular table in the middle with ten chairs. "Hi everybody! I'm home!"  
  
She waited for a response, but alas, there was none. Nothing but silence. "Hello?" she called.  
  
Again there was not an answer. This time she heard a sound, though. It was quiet and was coming from upstairs. It was the sound of someone walking. Someone walking with slow, shuffling foot steps.  
  
"Mom? Dad?"  
  
This time there was a creaking sound as a door swung open upstairs. More shuffling foot steps followed. Then the stairs were creaking beyond the door that led into the kitchen.  
  
"Is anybody here?"  
  
She wondered if there had been anyone in the driveway. If there hadn't been, then the footsteps may very well belong to a thief… or a murderer. Maybe someone had been injured.  
  
Whatever it was, those ominous, shuffling footsteps were saying that something was wrong. She then decided that it would be best to get out of there. To let whatever had happened evade her knowledge for the rest of her life.  
  
Her feet obviously sang a different song because she walked forward all the same. She walked over to the door and grasped the cool handle of it.  
  
The footsteps had now stopped and she could hear something on the other side of the door, clawing at it. She wondered if it was one of those monsters or demons. Her hand dropped from the door handle.  
  
"What is wrong with you, Ashley?"  
  
The idea of a monster or a demon waiting on the other side of the door was absurd. The idea that maybe it was her mother, father, or one of the two evacuated ones was much more rational. So she pulled the door open.  
  
Her face went pale and her body froze. She felt her muscles nearly loosen to the point where she would piss her pants, but she managed to keep control of that.  
  
The thing standing before her was completely human… in a way. It wasn't in another. The way that it wasn't was that if a human were to endure so much ravaging, that human would be dead. No 'if's, 'and's, or 'but's about it.  
  
This thing was still alive, though. It was alive despite the fact that its eye had been gouged out along with the surrounding skin and muscle tissue to allow the skull to be seen. It was alive despite the fact that its entrails were hanging out of its torn abdomen. It was alive despite the fact that its left arm had been torn off with a great amount of force.  
  
In the way that it was human was that it had the shape of a human… and it also looked a lot like Beatrice.  
  
"Mom?" Ashley asked in a wavering voice that didn't sound like her own.  
  
If that title registered with the thing in front of her or not Ashley would never know. What she did know was that it was infuriated as soon as she said it.  
  
In all of the movies they always displayed zombies as slow, dumb creatures that could easily be killed by a bullet to the head. This thing wasn't like that. This thing charged forward like an Olympic racer while screaming a blood - curdling scream.  
  
Ashley shrieked as she tore through the dining room, leaping over the dining room table and ignoring the hand that had passed through her long, auburn hair. It wasn't her mother. It couldn't be.  
  
Outside was a story all its own. Some of the things that were running around and about after human victims were torn apart like the thing in her house had been while others looked perfectly alright other than a ragged bite or two on various parts of their bodies. She was amazed that such chaos had arisen in the short amount of time she had been in the house. It had felt like a long time, but she knew that it hadn't been.  
  
Ashley fought her way through the crowds of humans and things until she found herself in a clearing between a supermarket and a bunch of trees.  
  
She darted to the trees and wandered through the woods for some time as the sun began its descent in the sky. At some point she had run into another zombie (she had ceased to think of them as anything else because they looked just like the zombies out of movies), which she had avoided.  
  
When the sun finally set, she wasn't more than a mile away from Los Angeles. The deserted city where her destiny resided.  
  
Meanwhile… Err… Before that… Or something…  
  
"How DID you know the Apocalypse was going on anyway?" Angel asked the Scoobies at a meeting between him and his group and the Scoobies and the extra Slayers in Giles's tent. Buffy was sitting on a desk that was piled sky - high with books for research. Angel was sad that it wasn't Wesley who was putting those books to use. Xander was sitting on the ground in front of Faith and Robin Wood. Behind those two sat hand - in - hand Willow and Kennedy. The Slayers were lined around the tent in a circle. Giles was sitting in a rolling chair at his desk with Dawn and Andrew standing behind him. Spike, Gunn, Illyria, and Angel were all standing near the exit flap of the tent.  
  
"Giles had an informant who knew what was going on here," Buffy stated. "Simple as that."  
  
"Simple?" Giles exclaimed. "I'm the one who had to translate his message. I know it wasn't simple."  
  
"Right," Buffy replied and then said a bit sarcastically. "Sorry."  
  
"I'm a little glad it's here now," Dawn stated. Everyone looked at her strangely. She was still a little shaken from her recent encounter with a strange voice and cold hands. She then explained herself hurriedly. "I mean that because now he's going to become human and everything when he stops it." She motioned towards Angel. Angel's mood immediately turned for the worse. Buffy and the others noticed.  
  
"What's wrong Angel?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Umm… I have something to tell you."  
  
"Obviously."  
  
"There's a long story leading up to it, but I had to sign away that prophecy."  
  
Buffy looked at him with wide eyes and so did the rest of the Scoobies. He imagined Spike and Gunn were equally surprised. Illyria probably didn't care.  
  
"Are you retarded?" Giles asked.  
  
"I had to do it in order to infiltrate this secret organization and gain their trust."  
  
"No, I mean seriously. Are you retarded?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You've been alive longer than I have and certainly have known about mystical forces much longer than I've been alive. So why is it that you don't know that you can't sign away a prophecy and I do?"  
  
Angel looked at Giles dumbstruck. "Huh?"  
  
"They probably tricked you into thinking so because they couldn't think of anything else for you to do in order for them to be satisfied that you were trustworthy."  
  
"But the paper sucked in the blood."  
  
"I have to ask again, are you retarded? Do you really think that the writers of the prophecy would want the paper stained? Of course not! It's a self - cleansing mechanism."  
  
"Oh," Angel then looked around at everyone. "Well, now that that's settled let's get to business."  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()**  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. Did you like this one? Hope you did. I think it's the shortest chapter of them all… or at least almost the shortest. The zombies will make an appearance later on in the story, so hold on to your… whatever you want to hold on to.  
  
I really didn't agree with the fact that they made him sign away his prophecy. I mean, that's what the whole show was about! Right? It was his quest for redemption as he battled the forces of evil. That was his reward! I didn't like the series finale that much at all. See you all next chapter.  
  
"Here in the land of make - believe,  
  
Don't you cry,  
  
You're so cold,  
  
But you feel alive,  
  
Take my hand for,  
  
One last time,  
  
Tell me how it ends!  
  
It's alright,  
  
Show me how defenseless you really are." - Breaking Benjamin "So Cold" 


	9. Arrival, History, and the Bolinkodagenat

**Chapter Nine:  
  
Arrival, History, and the Bolinkodagenat  
**  
Toby found himself arriving in Los Angeles not too long after his encounter with the Jarlkarlones. Oz was now sitting beside him in the passenger seat fully clothed in the baggy, patched suit that Toby had found under his seat. The guy had looked cool, calm, collected, and calculating before… now he looked like a calculating farmer. He didn't belong in those clothes, but Toby had nothing else to give him. The last of the money had been dried up on things like gas and the handgun Toby had managed to get without a delay--with a little help from Richard, of course. Then there was the little amount of food they had eaten as well.  
  
Oz had eaten a good ten servings of snack foods before slowing down. Apparently he hadn't had a good meal in the last few months. The guy didn't have a steady job and thus no cash flow. He was a drifter. Pity. Oz could've been something great, Toby supposed, but that damn werewolf thing had dragged him down.  
  
There hadn't been a great deal of talking in the last day of driving. There had been eating and a few mumbled words, and a lot of silence, but no actual conversation. Oz hadn't even asked where they were headed. Toby thought the depression that emanated off of Oz was caused by his years of drifting. He didn't know that it was actually because Oz was terrified that he couldn't keep control of his wolf form anymore than he could control when the sun rose or set.  
  
Now that they were arriving in Los Angeles Oz was looking around like he expected to see a ghost from his past. Toby didn't think he'd see much of anything now other than empty buildings and streets. He had heard about the evacuation on the radio, he just hadn't expected the magnitude of the abandonment. He had been to L.A. before, and he had never imagined that it could be anything more than busy and noisy. Now it was empty and silent. So silent that you could hear a pin drop as the saying goes.  
  
Lucky for the both of them they were driving just three streets away from a crowd of Mochlackdangodenacks. If they had taken a different street they could've wound up right in the middle of the crowd. If that scenario had occurred, they would not have survived. So, lucky them that they had avoided the crowd.  
  
Toby took a right at a four - way intersection that had a blank traffic light that seemed too surreal for Toby's taste. He took a left at the next chance and then another right. Unknown to him he was moving further and further to the east side of the city while his destination resided on the west side.  
  
Lorne was still wandering about on this side of the city as well, not knowing where Angel was or how to find him. Slayers were fighting in the south and Initiative soldiers were blasting away in the north. Connor, Drusilla, and Bob were in an apartment complex in the north - eastern portion of the city. Ashley was still out of city - limits, but she would enter the city from the west.  
  
As Toby drove down the street he began to hum to himself the song "So Cold" by Breaking Benjamin. Oz, who was staring out the window looking for Angel or any of the others from the group he had left so long ago, did not hear this humming.  
  
Above the rumbling of the truck's engine someone did, though. A green someone who could hold a note for as long as he lived. A green someone who was now searching for Angel to not only warn him about Lindsey, but also one of the fiercest demons to ever exist. Lorne read Toby's mind like a book. Upon reading Toby's mind, Lorne walked out of the alley he had been hiding in to evade sight of the driver of the truck.  
  
Toby spotted Lorne, who now had a hood thrown up over his head to conceal his demonic face, and stopped. Oz looked at Toby curiously, then he, too, spotted the hooded figure standing beside the alley.  
  
"Who's that?" he asked in his calm voice. His eyes were squinted slightly.  
  
"I don't know," Toby replied. It was probably the first multiple worded sentence he had ever spoken to Oz's human form.  
  
Suddenly Richard was at Toby's door in the form of Tom Hanks wearing the suit he had worn in "The Green Mile" and speaking like Tom Hanks, too.  
  
"Don't acknowledge my existence," Richard said before Toby could even give Richard a second glance. "They'll think you're crazy because they can't see or hear me. Think "It's A Wonderful Life" and you'll get what I mean. Don't be scared of that guy over there even after he takes off his hood. He's a bit green. His name is Lorne and he works with the man that I want you to take Oz to. Call him over, but not by name."  
  
Suddenly Richard disappeared. Toby gazed at this Lorne, reluctant to call the stranger over. But, his imaginary friend told him to do just that, so he motioned for Lorne to come over.  
  
Lorne crossed over to the truck, not distrusting Toby because he had read the man's mind. He glanced at Oz, the Lycanthrope Angel had briefly informed him of a couple of years back. He remembered a few things that Angel had said about Oz. That he was in love with the witch, Willow, who was a lesbian. He did remember Angel telling him that Oz had come to Los Angeles once before to help Angel, but couldn't remember anything else from what Angel had said.  
  
Lorne didn't want to pull his hood down just yet. Not until he knew that Toby wouldn't freak out--Lorne had gotten his name when he had peaked into Toby's mind.  
  
"Hello stranger," Lorne greeted him kindly without revealing a bit of his face. "I'm wondering where you're going?"  
  
Toby looked over at Oz and then back at Lorne. "I'm going to see a man. I hear he's your boss."  
  
Lorne was momentarily caught off guard and let Angel's name pass through his lips.  
  
Toby shrugged. "I never caught his name."  
  
Richard leaned over Toby's shoulder, half in and half out of the car. He now looked like Dr. Evil from "Austin Powers", and sounded like him, too.  
  
"Not exactly the tact I was hoping for Toby. I'm surrounded by friggin' idiots!"  
  
Richard then pressed his pinkie to his lip and then disappeared again.  
  
"I suppose it is this Angel that I'm looking for, Mister…" he left the sentence open for Lorne to finish, despite the fact that he already knew the green demon's name.  
  
"Lorne."  
  
"Lorne…" Toby trailed off thoughtfully. "Well, Lorne, if you would mind pointing me in the right direction of Angel, then that'd be swell."  
  
He flashed a smile that wasn't in the least bit charming. Toby had never had much luck with smiling.  
  
"I'd be glad to tell you exactly where he is at the moment," Lorne continued. He wanted to sound as humans as possible, so he didn't think allowing his usual amount of personality to flow into his words was the best idea. "Unfortunately I've been searching for he boss for a while. It's a long story that, while it wouldn't exactly bore you, it would leave you winded. Now, bee tee douba - u, what's your name?"  
  
"Name's Toby. Toby Manlilker. Pleasure to meet ya."  
  
Toby held his hand out of the open window and Lorne shook it energetically. "Pleasure's all mine. Do you have a seat I could perchance take in the cab? Or do I have to ride in the back?"  
  
"Unfortunately you'll have to ride in the back. There're only two seats up here and Oz here has the other one. If you'll wait a moment I can open the tail gate for ya."  
  
"No, no," Lorne held the driver's door closed. "I can climb in back. If you'll slide open that window so we can have a conversation it'd be appreciated."  
  
"Certainly."  
  
Lorne clambered into the back of the truck and came up to the cab with the back window now slid open.  
  
"So… what are we gonna talk about?" Oz asked curiously. He looked back at Lorne, but it was actually Toby who answered.  
  
"How about movies? Like "Austin Powers"."  
  
Oz smiled. He loved that movie. "You know what's funny?"  
  
Lorne looked at him as Toby started the truck up and began driving. "What?" Lorne asked.  
  
"How Scott Evil looks in no way like me."  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Lindsey finished brushing his teeth with his brand - spanking new tooth brush and placed it in the medicine cabinet that was hanging off of the tents thick fabric. If the thing were stuffed full of medications and pills it wouldn't have fallen from that sturdy hold.  
  
He then grinned at his reflection. His teeth were now sparkling clean. Not the whitest teeth in the world, but better than they had been the day before. Now he was back to wondering about his whole situation with being in a dead body.  
  
He had no sooner gotten onto that subject when a blonde slayer appeared in the mirror behind him. "What's your history?" Buffy asked brusquely. "I heard that you were a major pain in Angel's ass. I didn't get much out of him other than he had sent that green empath demon to kill you. I'd like to know more before I go into combat with you."  
  
Lindsey chuckled. "Nothing but ancient history darling. I'm reformed. I suppose Angel left that out, though. He wants me dead because I guess he really can't trust me ever again. I used to work for Wolfram and Hart. I didn't put it to use the way Angel attempted to. I couldn't put it to use in any direction up or down. I wasn't in charge.  
  
"I worked with a Lilah Morgan. She was a pain in his ass as well. Not to mention she had sex with the late Wesley a bunch of times after the good old Wes betrayed Angel and took Connor away."  
  
"Connor?" Buffy inquired, honestly confused.  
  
"You really were left out of the loop weren't you, now? I'll get to him later. Be patient.  
  
"I resurrected Darla. I think you may be familiar with her, considering she tried to kill you, and tried to turn Angel against you. I heard something about guns being used in that fight."  
  
Buffy's eyes widened as she remembered her short battle with Darla that had ended with a pile of dust on the floor of the Bronze.  
  
"You remember now," Lindsey stated as he spotted her expression, then chuckled a bit more. "I brought her back to life. She was human then. Then Drusilla--I suspect you remember her, too--came to town and sired Darla. Then she was all fangs again. That's about the time that Angel went through this whole dark stage.  
  
"So Angel and Darla met up and had a little round in bed. Don't worry about it, though. Like I said it's ancient history. Angel kept his soul and Darla came back a few months later after getting the hell out of town. You'd never guess what was growing inside of her. I mean, it was two vampires that had gone at it, not two humans. So the fact that Darla was prego with Angel's child came as a shock to all of us."  
  
Buffy's jaw dropped. "You're full of shit."  
  
"Oh contraire. Darla was pregnant and gave birth a few months after her return. In order to give birth, however, she staked herself. I never heard why, though."  
  
Buffy shifted her weight from foot to foot, not impatiently, just thoughtfully. "What happened to his son?"  
  
"All was good for a while. Then came along Holtz. Holtz's entire family was mutilated by Angel back in his soulless vampire days. Holtz swore vengeance upon Angel and got a demon to keep him alive in a stone statue until his time came to get revenge on Angel.  
  
"Lots of blood was shed as Angel and the bunch evaded Holtz time and time again. A karaoke bar was blown up and an entire squad of Wolfram and Hart soldiers were killed. I'm sorry. I got out of time line there. Holtz was around during Darla's final days. In fact he was the reason that Angel's son was born in an alley just outside of a burning karaoke bar.  
  
"After Darla staked herself and Connor was born--" Buffy's head snapped up to the mirror that Lindsey was still gazing into at that. "--Holtz decided to hold off his attack on Angel. THEN it was alright for a little while.  
  
"That's when Wesley was misguided into stealing Connor. He thought it was for the best because 'the father will kill the son' as the fake prophecy put it.  
  
"Then Holtz launched his attack. He stole Connor and ran off into another dimension."  
  
Lindsey chuckled, not at what he had said, but at Buffy's expression of surprise.  
  
"Not much longer later and Connor was back in this dimension along with Holtz. They had aged several years and Connor--now a teenager with fighting skills that probably surpass even your own--was ready to kill Angel, the father who had abandoned him. The father who would stop at nothing to destroy Holtz and Connor as Holtz said to him everyday of every year that they were in that dimension. Of course it wasn't years to us."  
  
Buffy was quite taken aback at all of this information and her expression was still comical to Lindsey.  
  
"Holtz was killed and Connor believed it was Angel who had done it. So Connor wanted Angel dead now more than ever. He lured Angel into thinking that Connor trusted him as a father. Then he launched his attack.  
  
"Through all of this, I must say, there was a love story of sorts between Angel and Cordelia. Cordelia was given a position as a higher being once they had decided to fully realize that love and go with it. It was also at this point that Angel was trapped in a metal casket and dropped to the bottom of the ocean where he remained for a couple months while Wesley searched desperately for him."  
  
Lindsey continued to explain the rest of the events. From Angel's discovery to the ruination of world peace. Then he explained Cordelia's death and Connor's new place in the world. He then turned around to look at Buffy who was shell - shocked at how much she had missed out on. Then he went to leave.  
  
"But I still don't know anything about you," she called after him.  
  
Lindsey chuckled yet again. "I know."  
  
And the he disappeared through the flap of the tent and left Buffy all alone to think about what she had just been fed.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Dawn was about to fall into sleep when a voice whispered in her ear. She recognized the voice. She hoped to God that it was just her ears playing tricks on her. She hoped that maybe it was just a dream. A little nightmare.  
  
She knew it wasn't. She knew that as soon as two cold hands clasped gently down on her shoulders. She didn't scream. She just closed her eyes tighter.  
  
"Go away," she whispered. "Get away from me."  
  
"I love you, Dawn, in a way," the voice said. "I don't want to make you suffer like I threatened to before."  
  
"Leave me alone. I don't want you here. Go away."  
  
"You're very special to me, Dawn - y. You're very special to me because you aren't human."  
  
"I'm human. Leave me alone. I'm human."  
  
No screaming. She didn't want to scream.  
  
"No you're not; you're the Key."  
  
Dawn bit her lower lip. She hadn't wanted the voice to say that. But she had known it was going to.  
  
"You're used to open up dimension portals Dawn. Nothing else. And that's why you're so special to me. I want you in my service."  
  
"I'll never be in your service."  
  
"You'd be a great asset. A greater one than you could ever be to that Slayer that masquerades as your sister."  
  
"She is my sister. Now go away."  
  
"I need a Key, Dawn. I know how to use one, too. Not like that pathetic excuse for a god, Glory. I could give you some great treasures, too. Physical pleasure that far exceeds that of sexual ecstasy."  
  
"I don't want that. Not if it means going against Buffy."  
  
"But she's not your sister."  
  
"She killed herself and stopped the portal from opening. She did that all for me. She did it with the Summers blood that I have. She is my sister. You can get the hell out of here because I'm not going to go to your side."  
  
"I really need a Key, Dawn. I really, really do."  
  
"No."  
  
"Turn around. Look at me."  
  
Dawn closed her eyes tighter. She didn't want to see it, whatever it was.  
  
"Look at me!"  
  
Suddenly she was lifted off the bed and turned around to face upwards.  
  
"Open your eyes!"  
  
"No!"  
  
Outside Illyria's head snapped to the direction of Dawn's shout. Illyria then began to walk over to Dawn's tent.  
  
"LOOK!"  
  
"NO!"  
  
But she DID look. She opened her eyes and they locked with a giant's. Two eyes the size of dinner plates glared at her, glowing red where a human's eye is white. The pupils were black pits that she couldn't take her eyes off of.  
  
No longer were the cold hands cold or gentle. They were giant, rough claws that were restraining her to the bed. The thing had to be twenty feet tall with inverted knees and pincers at its mouth. Its insect - like shell was a shiny black. It had two large spikes jutting out of each shoulder and one out of the tip of its head.  
  
Then the thing was being dragged off of her. It spun around shrieking and found itself staring at Illyria.  
  
"GOD!" it exclaimed in a purely demonic voice and then disappeared.  
  
Illyria looked upwards and smiled ever so slightly and uncharacteristically. "Bolinkodagenat."  
  
Dawn fainted then as Illyria glided over to her to check for injuries. Back when Illyria had possessed such great power, the Bolinkodagenat had been her most powerful general. Now she found herself enjoying the fact that she would be fighting her most powerful ex - ally.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()  
**  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It took a bit to write. Anyone who knows who Seth Green is would've gotten the joke that ended the section with Lorne, Toby, and Oz. I just thought it would be funny to say that after making Richard look like Dr. Evil. For those who didn't get it, Seth Green acted as both Oz and Scott Green.  
  
That's it for my A/N, other than an apology for any inaccuracies that may be present in Lindsey's recount of the story of Connor. See you next chapter.  
  
"I'm going to place them in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death." - Dr. Evil "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery"  
  
"I'm not actually going to witness their death, I'm just going to leave it alone and assume that everything went to plan, what?" - Dr. Evil "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" 


	10. A Cup of Coffee and Another Arrival

**Chapter Ten:**  
  
**A Cup of Coffee and Another Arrival**  
  
Gunn sipped the cup of hot espresso. Monique was drinking decaffeinated coffee. Apparently she didn't like caffeine's affect on her.  
  
"My mom practically broke into tears last time I saw her," Monique was saying. "She was sad because she had no idea what was going on with me. If I told her everything about me… about the Slayer - me, she'd more than likely send me off to the nearest mental health facility. Tarry Hill, I think it was. My father is probably glad to see me go. I don't think he ever liked me; I was an only child… and he always wanted a boy. Another male that he could relate to. I think he loathed me because I turned out to be a girl."  
  
"He should accept that that's the way God made you," Gunn replied. He wasn't exactly the religious type, but he had been fed Christianity stuff since the cradle, and he probably would never be able to break out of those beliefs entirely.  
  
Monique looked at him like he was insane. She then took another sip of her coffee. The surrounding mess hall was inhabited by Initiative soldiers eating their late dinner after a hard day's work of slaughtering demons of a seemingly endless supply. Most of them looked tired and beat - up. Some looked starved and some looked lost. A couple looked good, but not great.  
  
Riley was eating with a couple of friends and even he looked beat.  
  
"Are you kidding?" Monique said after setting her mug back down on the wooden table they were sitting at. "My father would blow up the Earth before ever allowing himself to believe anything the Bible has to say. He was an Atheist. Same with me and my mother. Too many things to believe to ever believe any one of them."  
  
Gunn looked down at his own mug. He was wearing camouflage pants that were given to him after his other clothes--the clothes that had been torn up during not only the assassination of the Black Thorne member, but the battle in the alley--had been discarded, which had been at some point during his short stay at the medical tent. His upper - body was draped in a black tee - shirt that was a size or two too big for him. Damn hand - me - downs.  
  
"I suppose I see your point."  
  
"You damn well should." She looked at him in the eyes and then burst out laughing. She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over a white tee - shirt. "Sorry. I like to joke with people a lot."  
  
"Shouldn't be sorry," Gunn replied. "You never offended me."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Nah."  
  
"Where I was living people got offended very easily when it came to religion. If I preached Atheism and evolution and stuff like that to them they'd give me a dirty look and get all pissy. Yet they always preached Christianity to me. I'm sorry, but that always pissed me off a lot. I was always polite to them when they talked to me about Christianity. ALWAYS. But they'd be complete assholes to me when I talked about my own choice of having no religion and the reasons behind that choice.  
  
"They just believe they're right so much that it makes me angry."  
  
"Yet you believe you're right?"  
  
"Yes," Monique said. Then continued after noticing what connection he was making. "Not like they do, though."  
  
"No?"  
  
"Nope. I believe that there's every chance that I'm wrong and that I'll be roasting in Hell like a Thanksgiving turkey for the rest of eternity once I suffer a possibly excruciatingly painful death. But, like I've said before, I don't worry about things too much."  
  
"An admirable characteristic."  
  
"Like you said before."  
  
"God sends those who don't believe to Hell."  
  
"Even if they're great people."  
  
"I heard this somewhere before. If you kill someone, the Judge, while at court, will not excuse you from being punished because you have saved someone before then."  
  
"I know, but not believing isn't nearly as bad as killing someone. If you save so many people during life and do nothing but what the common perspective of 'good' is, yet don't believe, you'll go to Hell. I don't think even Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden would be that heartless."  
  
Gunn frowned. He enjoyed having conversations like this, but only when he was making better points than the person he was talking to.  
  
"What do you mean, 'heartless'?" Gunn asked. He wasn't totally religious, but he did believe in some deep part of him all of the things the Bible said. And that part of him was getting irritated that Monique was challenging its beliefs.  
  
"How can you possibly consider sending someone to spend an eternity of torture in a place where fire always burns anything but that? Once you actually consider how terrible that is, not a single soul on Earth deserves a punishment such as that, no matter what they did. From robbery and not being Christian to rape and murder not a single crime deserves such a fate.  
  
"I suppose I am totally convinced that I'm right in the fact that I don't believe Hell exists because it's too cruel."  
  
Monique had a fire in her eyes that suggested she was getting quite worked up. "Okay, okay. Calm down Monique. Maybe we should find a different topic of conversation."  
  
"Sorry," Monique replied after taking a couple deep breaths. "Just thinking too much about things. I wish I was a natural blonde."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Monique looked at him with a smile. "Don't tell me that you've never heard a blonde joke before."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Yeah. It was corny. Forget it."  
  
"I thought it was funny."  
  
"Liar."  
  
Gunn smiled. "Okay, it was corny."  
  
"Corniest joke you've ever heard?"  
  
"Yep. Cornier than a porn comedy."  
  
Monique smiled. "Ouch."  
  
Gunn sipped his espresso again and Monique sipped her coffee. Then there was a short silence in which they listened to the song that was playing over the speakers placed around the mess hall. It was "Warning" by Incubus.  
  
"So what exactly is your natural hair color?"  
  
"Oh, don't ask."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I don't want to even remember it. My hair was ugly. It was the worst color ever!"  
  
Gunn chuckled. "What was it?"  
  
"It was red."  
  
"What's wrong with that?"  
  
"I hate red! No one else saw a problem with it, but I hated it so much!"  
  
"You liked blonde better?"  
  
"I would prefer bleach blonde, but I couldn't find any of that particular dye."  
  
"That sucks."  
  
"Indeed it does."  
  
There was another silence that lasted longer than the first.  
  
"It's getting late, Gunn. I'm just gonna head back to my tent and get some sleep."  
  
"I'll walk you there."  
  
Monique gave him a sly grin. "You sure that's all you want to do, Charles?"  
  
She cocked an eyebrow and Gunn smiled. "I guess I'm crazy, Monique. I'm very sorry, but I'm too tired to take you up on that offer tonight."  
  
Monique looked down disappointedly. "There was no offer," she replied briskly and stood up. Gunn followed her, trying to keep up with her manic pace of walking.  
  
"Monique!" he shouted after her and she slowed just a little. A couple of soldiers glanced at them curiously and then passed on by. Gunn grabbed Monique's shoulder and pulled her around. She didn't look very happy. "What's wrong?" he asked.  
  
She looked around and then whispered back at him. "It's the Apocalypse, Gunn. What you didn't dare specify to me was the word 'the'. If the world does indeed end, then I don't want to die never… having been with… a man."  
  
Gunn looked at her soberly. "Alright," he said and Monique's face lit up.  
  
He didn't even know what had hit him. Not even when his head smashed into the brick building on the other side of the street and he felt blood dribble slowly down the side of his face. Not until he looked back at Monique and saw a creature.  
  
Its head was that of a giant snake and beneath that was battle armor that was a mixture of metal and leather straps. Its arms were two feet long each, and its legs were three feet. As a whole the creature was a mere five feet tall, but still quite imposing.  
  
In its right claw it held Monique by the throat. It was looking at her with mild interest as it choked her.  
  
"Monique…" Gunn exhaled, trying desperately to keep conscious as the pain in his head throbbed annoyingly.  
  
The thing's head snapped back to Gunn at the sound of his voice. It tossed Monique away like a rag doll and then held out its right hand. One moment there was nothing in its hand, then, the next moment, there was a four foot, double sided sword. There were no sparks or colorful specks of light or fairy dust. It was just plain and simple there.  
  
"Charles Gunn," a whispering, hissing voice echoed inside of his head. "My name's Zaerintoleran. Nice to meet you. Your head will be one of my most prized possessions."  
  
If the voice had been spoken aloud, Gunn would've asked if he could repeat his name, but since it was spoken directly inside of his head, there was no need.  
  
Zaerintoleran suddenly charged forth with its sword raised and a strangely human grin spreading across its reptilian face.  
  
One of the soldiers aimed their gun and fired a bullet right through Zaerintoleran's throat. Pink blood gushed outwards and flowed down its body like the Niagara Falls. Zaerintoleran looked over at the soldier who had fired, its smile now gone, and glared at him, seemingly unaffected by the bullet wound.  
  
The soldier looked at the blood, at Zaerintoleran's glare, then at his own gun and then ran off screaming like a woman. Gunn wondered why the soldier had ran off like that just because it had glared at him, but then remembered the voice inside of his head. The same voice must've threatened something horrible to the soldier.  
  
Gunn strained to gain his feet, but failed. One, twice, and then thrice.  
  
Gun fire rang throughout the city as a squadron of troops and Slayers spotted Zaerintoleran walking towards Gunn calmly with clear homicidal intent.  
  
Twenty must've hit the thing and it didn't even so much as glance over at its attackers.  
  
Gunn began crawling away. Zaerintoleran didn't speed up to catch him; it just kept that same, ominous waltz. It wasn't smiling now. Either it wasn't amused anymore, or the bullets that had torn most of its face off had damaged the muscle too much for it to smile.  
  
Then screeching filled his head. The whispering voice was now howling in pain. The gun fire ceased abruptly and Gunn saw all of the soldiers and Slayers grabbing at their heads and screaming screams that mingled with the screeching in their heads to make a horrifying sound that would keep most of them from sleeping for the next couple of days.  
  
Gunn looked at Zaerintoleran and saw it clutching a spot of its head that was spraying pink blood. Gunn then continued thrashing on the sidewalk and clutching his head in what seemed to be an effort to squeeze the noise out.  
  
There was a loud pop as air filled a very quickly vacated area and the screeching stopped. Gunn tried to get up again and failed again. In the moment before he fainted he saw that Zaerintoleran was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished into thin air.  
  
Then good-bye cruel world. Gunn was unconscious.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Ashley stumbled into the city panting and sweating. It was Los Angeles. Somehow she had just ran several miles in just a couple of hours. She was reminded then of "The Mothman Prophecies". In that movie the main character traveled hundreds of miles between twelve and two in the morning without even realizing it. There he had some sort of purpose to stop a bad occurrence from happening. Not a bad movie at all.  
  
Ashley collapsed in the middle of a three-way intersection and got up a couple of minutes later. Even though the civilians were all gone, her instincts kept telling her to get the hell out of the street. So she did.  
  
It was a damn good thing she did, too. Not ten minutes later a tank rumbled by, full of soldiers.  
  
Her unconscious form did not go unnoticed. The tank came to a stop and two soldiers clambered out of the top. They hurried down the tank and ran over to Ashley.  
  
"She's alive!" Riley called back to the two soldiers who were lagging behind after checking for her pulse. Half an hour ago he had been eating a steak in the mess hall as Gunn and Monique had their first date. He snapped his fingers in front of her eyes and she didn't stir. "Unconscious! Let's load her up and take her to the medics!"  
  
The two soldiers helped Riley carry her to the tank. Riley climbed up after the soldiers as they carried the girl above him.  
  
He stopped halfway to the top of the tank and looked behind him. He had thought he had heard something. The sound of rapid footfalls. It was coming from the direction of the city limits.  
  
"Hold up!" Riley shouted up to the two soldiers as they handed the girl to the soldiers inside of the tank. The two snapped to attention. "We might have another one coming."  
  
"What's that, sir?"  
  
"We might have another coming!"  
  
When Riley looked back down the street that led back out into the rest of the world--the street the girl had come down most likely--there was a human form running towards them. No, running was too light a word; sprinting was more like it.  
  
Riley stepped back down off of the tank and waved at the person sprinting towards them. "Stop running!" he ordered. "You're safe now!"  
  
He didn't even think about whether or not the person was being chased by something… or that the person was something to run from. The latter of the two was what Riley should've thought of. Perhaps that would've saved a life or two.  
  
Too many 'should haves'. What happened sucked, but it happened.  
  
As the army of darkness descended upon the soldiers Ashley dreamed of her family and screamed a scream of sorrow that the soldiers did not hear, considering it was in her dream.  
  
Too late Riley noticed the dead features on the body of the thing not ten meters in front of his nose. By that time the doom of the soldiers had already been decided.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()  
**  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I didn't want a super long chapter, so I excluded the rest of what I was going to put in. Don't worry. They're not excluded like deleted scenes, they're just pushed over to the next chapter.  
  
Here's some trivia: I decided to say "As the army of darkness descended upon the soldiers" because "The Army of Darkness" is a great comedy movie directed by Sam Raimi (who has directed the "Evil Dead" trilogy--which includes "The Army of Darkness" as the final chapter--and the spectacular "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2").  
  
I better get to sleep soon. Good-night folks. Hope you enjoyed this and please review. See you all next chapter.  
  
"I accidentally glued myself to um… myself." - Jim "American Pie 2" 


	11. The Zombies, Explanations, Attacking Bob...

**Chapter Eleven:**  
  
**The Zombies, Explanations, Attacking Bob and Drusilla  
**  
Sam poked her head out of the top of the tank and peered out at the man Riley was walking towards. She didn't have a good feeling about this. Twice she thought of calling to Riley and telling him to leave that man alone. That she had a feeling that something really bad was about to happen. Twice she decided against it.  
  
Just when Riley himself was getting a bad feeling about the man, he saw that there was something very wrong with the thing that was masquerading about as a man in front of him. It wasn't ten meters in front of his nose and he turned around and darted back to the tank. The zombie was going faster, but Riley reached the tank and was climbing up before it could reach him.  
  
"Get inside!" he shouted at the soldiers above him. "Get the hell inside!"  
  
Instead of obeying him, like they should have, they took shots at the thing below him that Riley kept thinking of as a zombie. The zombie screamed as shots hit it, and then tried to run off. "Tried" is the key word there. A bullet blew its heart out all over the street and it fell like so many bricks to the ground.  
  
Riley considered leaving it alone, but he couldn't. They needed to take the body for research. To find out what those things were. He kept thinking of it as a zombie, but he wasn't even remotely certain that that was what it was. Maybe it was a demon that had possessed the body, or a demon that had used the human's skin as a disguise like the alien in "Men in Black". He climbed back down off of the tank--one of the worst decisions he would ever make in his life.  
  
"What are you doing, Riley?" Sam called after him, her fear not staying out of her voice. "Get back here!"  
  
"Radio in to Head Quarters! Tell them we've got something for our scientists to check out!"  
  
"Riley!"  
  
"I'll be right back!"  
  
As Jamie Kennedy stated in "Scream", saying 'I'll be right back' is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed.  
  
Riley stood over the dead body, preparing himself to pick the rotting thing up, and not knowing that he was wasting time. Time, which was, unbeknownst to him, of short supply. Finally he slung the stinking thing over his shoulder, grimacing at the feel and smell of it. Then he started back to the tank.  
  
Three soldiers were coming towards him, wondering if he needed any help. Riley supposed he did, a limp body was quite heavy. One soldier, Jake, took the body's legs and another, Barry, took its arms. The third, Greg, walked back with them. Riley followed.  
  
Apparently shooting out the thing's heart had only momentarily stopped it. That became clear when it brought its head up and bit off Barry's nose. Barry let go of the top half of the zombie and grabbed at the blood spraying hole in his face, screaming louder than he had ever screamed before.  
  
The zombie struggled with Jake to get its legs free and did so before Riley or Greg could shoot it. It got to its feet and leapt on top of Greg, biting into his neck like a vampire. However, unlike a vampire it tore Greg's neck out and ate the meat it had pulled off instead of sucking blood out of two holes.  
  
Greg began screaming then, too.  
  
"Oh, shit!" Greg cried. "It bit me! It bit me!"  
  
Riley shot at the zombie, but only succeeded in hitting its arm as it jumped off of Greg and charged at its nearest target: Jake.  
  
"Get the hell away from me!" Jake hollered and then ran off, dropping the weapon he had drawn in the process. Barry, who was desperately trying to get himself under control, decided to hurl himself at the zombie and trap it under his considerable weight of two-hundred and six pounds so that they could aim at it easier and blow it to hell.  
  
If he had hurled himself at it a split-second earlier he would have succeeded. He missed when he lunged forward and fell onto the ground. The zombie, in effect, turned around and jumped on top of him, tearing his face apart. Barry blacked out at some point as he was mauled by the undead creature on top of him.  
  
Jake, as the only one smart enough to run away, was thrown down by three zombies as they rounded the corner. He was torn apart and eaten as other zombies joined in the frenzied killing.  
  
Riley and the others didn't even notice the new wave of enemies; they were too focused on the zombie that was killing Barry to do so.  
  
Riley aimed, but it was Greg, who was fending off fainting, who shot the thing's head with his nine millimeter--the same gun the others had. Brain matter and blood doused Barry's ravaged face.  
  
Riley looked over at Greg, who was hyperventilating. "Barry…" he breathed. Barry and Greg had been great friends, the type of friends that stuck together through just about everything. Barry was obviously dead and Greg couldn't believe it. "Jesus Christ."  
  
Then Greg's eyes widened as he looked over in the direction of Jake's run. "Oh… God."  
  
Riley followed his gaze and his eyes went wide as dinner plates. "RUN!" he shouted and took off in the direction of the tank. Sam was urging them on.  
  
"Run!" she shouted. "Run!"  
  
Coming down all three streets were dozens of zombies. Each as hungry and eager to bit into human flesh as the next.  
  
Greg tripped before making it to the tank and fell flat on his face. Riley stopped to help him but Greg aimed his gun at Riley, knowing that Riley would not obey him without a little incentive. "Keep going!"  
  
So Riley reluctantly did so. He ignored the gunshots from Greg's last stand against the undead killers. He ignored the horrible screams that followed.  
  
He grabbed onto the tank and began climbing up. He nearly got to the top and grabbed Sam's outstretched hand. Their eyes then met with love instead of fear for the last time.  
  
"RILEY!" Sam shrieked and pointed with her left hand beneath him. Riley looked down and saw as the zombie jumped up at him with outstretched hands. Riley's hand gripped Sam's hard enough to make her grit her teeth in pain, and then he let go. The zombie had landed on his back and forced him forward hard. In shock he let go of the tank.  
  
He then plummeted down to the street and the mob of hungry zombies below. Halfway down he hit something hard that broke his leg and then snapped off of the tank to fall with him.  
  
He had never stopped loving Buffy. His thoughts went to her first. Then to the rest of the Scoobies. Xander, Dawn, Willow, Anya, Giles, and Tara. Then he thought of how he had met Sam. How beautiful she had been, how beautiful she still was. She was perfect for him. He had known from the start.  
  
Too bad it had to end like it did.  
  
Riley tried not to scream as he was eviscerated.  
  
The tank's turret began spinning to the threat of the zombies. A shell was fired and over twenty zombies were either incinerated or blown up.  
  
Sam was sobbing and crying, trying to deny the death of Riley. It was to no avail. The soldiers pulled her inside with use of great force and sat her down on the floor next to Ashley.  
  
"NO!" she shrieked. "RILEY!"  
  
She didn't try to get back to the hatchway. She knew that it would do no good.  
  
Another shell was fired.  
  
"Get us out of here!" the second-in-charge, Matt, ordered the driver.  
  
"It won't start back up!" the driver replied. "We're stuck!"  
  
Matt looked around at the other soldiers. He had no idea what to do. He had never been in charge of a situation like this before. He knew that the only chance they would have would be to get out and make a run for it. That, however, would mean a drastic amount of casualties, leaving the little girl behind… and Sam, the woman who was his friend. He didn't want to admit it, but they did have to get out and make a run for it. Otherwise they would be stuck in there for a long time before anyone came for them--their radio antennae had been knocked off by Riley as he fell. They stood a much better chance of suffering one-hundred percent casualties by staying. So he finally gave the order.  
  
"Alright soldiers!" he began. "I am now in charge of this situation now that Riley is… deceased. The tank is down and our radio antennae is gone. I'm sorry to say that we'll have to make a run for it."  
  
Matt didn't want to run, and from the looks of it neither did anyone else. But they would.  
  
Outside there were several bumps and clanks as the zombies scaled the tank. Matt grabbed an M-16 and popped open the hatch. He peered out and saw that two zombies had reached the top. He shot them both off and then blew off three more. He climbed out of the hole and another soldier came up, followed by another and another. They were all firing as the zombies climbed up to them.  
  
They lost two before they could get down the side of the tank facing an area that was not infested with zombies. Three more fell as the zombies came around after them or jumped off of the tank on top of them.  
  
Five out of the seven left were lost a few moments later. Sam and Ashley were still inside of the tank, Sam hugging her knees and crying uncontrollably. Ashley was beginning to wake up.  
  
Matt and the last soldier left were picked off after Ashley stood up in a great panic.  
  
"What's going on?" Ashley asked in a shrill voice. She was looking at the sobbing Sam. "What's happening?"  
  
"He's dead! He's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead he's dead."  
  
"Who's dead?"  
  
A zombie dropped into the tank and glared at them with glazed, dead, hungry eyes before Sam could answer.  
  
It took two running steps forward before Sam blasted it away with her nine millimeter. "BASTARD! You killed him!"  
  
Zombies then began falling into the tank continuously. Six made it in and Four survived to kill Sam, who had just run out of ammo.  
  
They tore her neck out and nibbled on her arms and legs. More kept coming. Ashley wondered if they would be able to make it back out and hoped bitterly that they wouldn't, that they would starve to… a second death… in the tank.  
  
When the first one reached her, something happened.  
  
She closed her eyes and a blinding light filled the tank. It seeped out into the surrounding street. Then it began to look like an explosion. A sphere expanded to enclose five surrounding city blocks. An explosion of green light filled the sphere.  
  
Across the city, Angel, Illyria, Buffy, Xander, and Willow saw the tall sphere as they left the medical tent after visiting Gunn and Monique. Gunn was still unconscious and the doctors were working hard to let him regain consciousness again. Monique hadn't been hurt much and was able to tell them that it was a horrible, short monster. Buffy had already known this, but Monique had insisted on giving a description.  
  
The green sphere then began to suck itself back in. Wind flew out over the city hard enough to knock over a few buildings. The five city blocks that had been enclosed in the sphere were gone. The bottom of the sphere had dug into the ground and left a huge crater near the edge of the city. Water gushed out of demolished sewer pipes and telephone poll wires swung in the breeze from where they had been disconnected. The bottom of a street light protruded from the ground with a curve cut into the top of it where the rest of the street light would normally be located.  
  
In the middle of that crater was Ashley, the only survivor of that wave of zombies. She looked around her at the destruction she had just caused somehow.  
  
"What the hell just happened?"  
  
Then she saw Joey in the same clothes he had been in when she had first seen him. He was looking at her grimly. "That was you unleashing your power… filtered. Just wait until you unleash it COMPLETELY. That's gonna blow your mind!"  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
"What's that?" Oz asked and pointed out towards a dome of green light barely visible over the building tops. Toby and Lorne looked at it.  
  
"I have no idea," Lorne replied after a moment of silent staring.  
  
"It's gone now," Toby stated. The dome had shrunk out of sight below the buildings.  
  
"The question isn't entirely what it was, either," Lorne said. "It's what made it. Or what's going on where it was."  
  
"Green guy's got a point," Oz said. "I'm hoping that whoever or whatever did that is with us."  
  
For a while longer they drove on in silence. It was a few minutes later that they drove right into the base.  
  
There was some surprise that followed this and some soldiers stopped them with their guns raised demanding to know who they were. It was good for them that Angel was there to identify Lorne, who had just taken off his hood per order from one of the gunmen, otherwise they might've been imprisoned.  
  
"Hey Angelface," Lorne greeted Angel enthusiastically. He averted Angel's eyes, knowing that he had failed the mission Angel had sent him to do. "I need to tell you something."  
  
"You killed Lindsey," Angel said.  
  
Lorne looked at him shamefully. "No. He got awa--"  
  
"No, you DID kill Lindsey."  
  
"…Huh?"  
  
"He's still up and walking around, sure, but he IS dead. His body's at room temperature and his heart's not beating."  
  
"…What?"  
  
"We don't know why or how yet. We've got Giles working on it."  
  
"Is Wesley on it, too?" Lorne asked. He was trying to remember who Giles was. He was also dealing with the rush of mixed emotions that had come with the news of Lindsey's condition. He was more surprised that he had actually succeeded in killing Lindsey than Lindsey still walking around and controlling his dead body. He had never thought that he could take another being's life.  
  
Then Angel looked away from him gravely. Lorne knew what had happened just from that simple motion. "Oh, no."  
  
"We buried him two or three days ago."  
  
Oz looked from Lorne to Angel. The news of Wesley's death was strange to him. He remembered Wes as a bookworm and a wimp. He wondered if Wes had died in battle. Probably had. Oz fought back the urge to laugh at the image of the bookworm fighting demons with ease.  
  
Angel then caught sight of Oz for the first time. "Oz?" he said.  
  
"Hey Angel."  
  
Angel then looked at Toby. "Who're you?"  
  
"Angel?"  
  
"Yeah. That's me. Who are you?"  
  
"Toby Manlilker. I've traveled from all the way up in New York to see you."  
  
"Uh-huh… why?"  
  
"To deliver this werewolf to you."  
  
Oz didn't show his disapproval of being referred to as 'werewolf' and bit his tongue.  
  
"I have to ask this again: why?"  
  
Toby looked around at them. "You'll think I'm crazy."  
  
"I'm a vampire and that is actually Lorne's skin you're looking at and not make-up."  
  
Toby shifted his eyes between them. "Okay then."  
  
Toby then filled them all in on his experience with Richard--whom he continuously referred to as 'Dick'.  
  
After he was finished, which was about a half hour later, Oz raised an eyebrow. "So… I'm supposed to put a stop to an 'Agent of the Apocalypse'?"  
  
"That's what Dick said."  
  
Lorne looked confused. "Is that actually his name?"  
  
Toby grinned slightly. "Yeah."  
  
That made Lorne even more confused as to why anyone would keep the name of Dick.  
  
"Did he saw anything else about me?" Oz inquired. He sounded a bit urgent. That was quite unlike the Oz that Angel had known. He wondered what was wrong with Oz.  
  
Before he could say anything, Toby then told them about the Jarlkarlones. Lorne's eyes widened in alarm.  
  
"How many did you see?" he asked hurriedly.  
  
"I don't kno--"  
  
"HOW MANY?" Lorne shouted, worry in his eyes.  
  
"More than ten! There were a bunch of them. Maybe even more than twenty! God!"  
  
"What's wrong Lorne?" Angel asked.  
  
"This is bad. This is very, very bad. Jarlkarlones made a name for themselves as the most terrifying demon in my home dimension. Just one of them could wipe out most of a village before getting killed. If there are more than twenty of them… we are in serious danger."  
  
"ANGEL!" Buffy called from behind them. Angel turned around and saw her running at them. The soldiers that had been pointing guns before were now going about their business. She stopped in front of Angel. She hadn't seen Oz yet. "We just lost contact with one of our scouting tanks--the one that Riley and Sam were in. Last time we heard from them they were across the city. Around the area that the green light was."  
  
Angel turned to Lorne. "Can Jarlkarlones cause a giant burst of green light?"  
  
"No," Lorne replied without a moment's hesitation. "They don't have any magic in 'em. They just mutilate with their claws… or their tails."  
  
"Oz?" Buffy had just spotted Oz.  
  
"Hey Buffy."  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
"Nice to see you, too."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"I'm here to fulfill a prophecy."  
  
"Buffy?" Angel had turned back to her. "Send another scout tank to check on Riley's tank. Their orders are to rescue any survivors and to bring the tank back if it's in good driving condition."  
  
Buffy nodded and began to run off when Angel called her back. "Tell them to get the hell out of there if there's any threat at all. We can't lose another tank. They're in short supply."  
  
"Alright Angel."  
  
Buffy then ran off and was not called back. The four watched her run until she was out of sight.  
  
"When did they all come here?" Lorne asked, just realizing that he was standing in a military base. Call him slow if you want; things had just happened too fast for him to even care about that before.  
  
"About four days ago."  
  
Lorne then remembered the military vehicles he had seen after killing Lindsey. Four days? It felt more like four years.  
  
"Is Willow here?" Oz asked suddenly. He had mixed feelings about seeing Willow again. He had left to get his wolf under control, and Willow had gone all lesbian on him while he was gone.  
  
"She's here."  
  
"With Tara?"  
  
"Tara's dead."  
  
"Oh…" Oz felt a pang of sorrow for Willow.  
  
"She's here with another girl, though. Kennedy, I think."  
  
Oz had no reply to that. If Willow's girlfriend had been dead long enough for her to get over it and get another girlfriend… that meant he had been gone way too long. He hated that sense of time slipping through your fingers. He had to admit that his Eskimo girl had come a long way. He would have known that she definitely had if he had known about her evil streak from a couple of years back.  
  
"You all probably need food and water," Angel said. "Come with me." He then led the trio to the mess hall tent.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Drusilla was nude and sleeping next to Bob after a half hour of "playing" in the bed. Bob was holding a television remote and trying to flip through channels, but the power was out. All he could see by was candlelight.  
  
Bob reluctantly dropped the remote and laid back down. He wasn't unsettled by the lack of breathing on Drusilla's part, or the lack of body-warmth; that had bought him a few minutes.  
  
He was almost asleep when Connor called out from the next room over. Bob suddenly felt like a parent to the teenager. He got up and walked across the room, not covering himself up, and the doors all opened before him.  
  
He walked into the dark kitchen and turned right. He then walked into a pitch, dark room. Connor was calling out for food. Connor walked over to Bob with his food dish out.  
  
"Food… please…"  
  
"Fine," Bob said after sighing. Suddenly a gourmet meal appeared in Connor's dish--not that either of them could see it. Connor shouted in joy and then dug in with his hands, which Bob kept clean with his mind. Connor would be able to go if he wanted to, but Bob kept him from knowing that.  
  
Bob then turned around and walked back to Drusilla. All of the doors closed behind him. Bob sat down in bed and then the TV turned on. Bob smiled as "Family Guy" played across the screen. Screw remotes; mind control on TV is the best! Bob could just see the commercials. "Control your TV… WITH YOUR MIND!" he whispered and then chuckled. The blankets pulled themselves over him and his pillow became fluffier and more comfortable.  
  
That's when he first noticed something was wrong with the air. It was warmer than normal. Much warmer than his mind was trying to make it.  
  
He looked at the window and saw three mouths piled up on top of each other outside of it. All of the mouths were connected to a perfectly spherical head.  
  
They were on the third floor and the thing's head was taking up more than the window could show! Bob knew what it was, but couldn't believe that the Apocalypse had advanced so much so quickly.  
  
"You're not supposed to be here yet," Bob stated. "Not until the zombies come. And not until the Undead Human comes to be!"  
  
He then knew that the Undead Human had already come to be, and that the zombies had already made their first move in the Apocalypse. Had he really been out of the game for that long?  
  
Drusilla jolted awake at Bob's mind's bidding.  
  
"How much is the puppy in the window?" Drusilla asked.  
  
"One hell of a lot of trouble," Bob replied. Suddenly the Venacklondage shoved its eight foot arm through the wall and grabbed at Bob. It then retracted its hand screeching in pain that Bob had put into its mind. "Let's get out of here!"  
  
Drusilla and Bob burst out of the room and ran down the stairs. Connor followed them, staying far enough behind so that he wouldn't be noticed. He knew that his mind was finally freed, he just wanted to keep it free. He also knew that something was going on that was pretty bad… bad enough to scare off the most powerful human being on Earth.  
  
He had no idea that he might just be wrong about that.  
  
Connor charged down the dark stairs, only being able to see where he was stepping by the light that had been powered to life thanks to Bob's mind.  
  
When he got outside his mind was imprisoned again as Bob faced the Venacklondage.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()**  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you liked this. To DZ Dillinger: Gunn isn't really a huge Christian in this story, just one because his up bringers had drilled the religion into his brain at a young age. And Monique does believe in the hell dimensions, just not the actual Hell that Christians believe in. She doesn't really believe in a Heaven either. Or a God. And yes… I suppose I do have a bone to pick with some of my relatives (the comparison of God and Hell to a Judge and jail was one of my uncle's that annoyed me, and my cousin, uncle, and grandmother continuously preach to me, in fact, I was dragged to watch a preacher by my uncle). Thanks for giving a thought-filled review. I appreciate it. Zaerintoleran is the last demon with a long name that I will introduce, considering it was getting annoying for me to think up long names, so you don't have to be besieged by anymore demons with long names.  
  
Please review. Sorry to Riley fans about Riley's death. I just wanted to get you readers to understand that anyone can die in this final Apocalypse. Illyria, Spike, Dawn, etcetera will be written about more. Be patient.  
  
This, along with my AN, is the longest chapter of this story. And this story has broken past 100 pages with size 14, Sylfaen font and about thirty-five lines per full page. That's about average for a story. See you next chapter.  
  
"I see dead people." - Cole "The Sixth Sense" (Too commonly used, but a classic nonetheless) 


	12. The Attack of the 50 Foot Monsters

**Chapter Twelve:**  
  
**The Attack of the 50 Foot Monsters  
**  
Bob stared at the hellish face of the Venacklondage. He had heard about these things. They had great powers. Not greater than Bob's, but really great nonetheless. Bob felt himself hurling into oblivion… and that oblivion turned out to be a brick wall.  
  
The bricks broke apart as he crashed through them. He wound up on the floor of the spacious lobby with its linoleum floor and big, gold chandeliers. He gained his feet and jumped outside of the building. He stood gloriously in front of the Venacklondage for a moment.  
  
He took one step forward and when his foot hit the ground time slowed to a snail's crawl. The ground felt like liquid beneath his feet and acted likewise, sending out waves in every direction. Bob took another step forward, the time slowing not having any affect on him.  
  
Bob ran to the feet of the monstrous being and dozens of tentacles sprouted out of his arms. They looked like rat tails and were moist, soft things. They crawled up the Venacklondage's legs and tightened so hard that the Venacklondage began to screech--a very strange thing to listen to slowed down--and then Bob pulled its legs out from under it.  
  
As time resumed as normal the demon crashed to the ground. Bob felt his right arm spray blood as it was torn off. About the Venacklondage's powers: they have telekinesis and levitation abilities, too.  
  
"Oh, God!" Bob screamed and then shrieked as his other arm was torn off as well. Bob forced the blood to reroute itself so that it wouldn't be wasted. Several capillaries and veins formed to perform this reroute.  
  
Then there was a giant disturbance in the air as both arms appeared in the blink of an eye. The wind level was powerful enough to knock over Connor and Drusilla, Connor trapped behind bars in his mind and screaming to be let out. Screaming to the endless, starless galaxy of his mind.  
  
Bob redirected the wind and focused it at the Venacklondage, which was just regaining its feet. It roared as it was blown into the air and came crashing down with enough force to knock Drusilla down again, Connor hadn't gotten back up yet. Two buildings collapsed in clouds of dust as the small earthquake caused by the Venacklondage shot out.  
  
Bob held his ground, though. He might as well have been cemented to the street.  
  
The Venacklondage tried to get up again, but a seam appeared on its neck. The seam went all the way around, caused by Bob. Mucky, brown blood gushed out all over the place. It was like the thing was full of mud.  
  
Then its head slipped off and the giant died.  
  
Bob stood victoriously at the dead feet of the Venacklondage. He then bellowed his rage to it. He shouldn't have bided his time for so long. The pieces had moved and he had lost them. He was the pawn that had only moved one space forward and then sat there, forgotten.  
  
He then turned to Drusilla and Connor. "We're going for a trip," he informed them. Connor didn't hear him from his position on the ground. Drusilla was swaying on her feet. Both Drusilla and Bob were nude, but neither cared.  
  
"Is the little mind sick child going with?" Drusilla asked in her dreamy voice. It was like she wasn't even on the same planet as her body.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Are we going to see Spike?"  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
Drusilla smiled. "Are we going to hurt Spike?"  
  
Bob approached her with a smile on his face. A wooden stake materialized in his hand and he put it into her outstretched hand. "No. YOU are going to hurt him. You can hurt him all you want. Now, let's go."  
  
Connor stood up quickly. He looked at both Bob and Drusilla. He was fighting to get out of that little cell in his mind, but he was losing. He was losing quite miserably.  
  
"Come Connor," Bob beckoned and then began to walk away, confident that Connor would follow, and he did.  
  
The three walked for a few minutes. Bob wanted to get to the base and confront Angel with the plan of killing Connor in front of him and then getting the hell out of there. He wanted to let Dru kill Spike. He wanted to find Lindsey, the one who was supposed to stay alive even after his body was dead for seemingly no reason.  
  
The Venacklondages were demons from a hell dimension. The one that all Wolfram and Hart employees who don't fulfill their contracts are sent to. When Lindsey died and still lived, the Venacklondages came out to retrieve him. For what purpose Lindsey was supposed to stay alive is unclear in the prophecy--mostly because no one has been able to translate and decode that portion of it--but it was clearly for something major.  
  
The walking stopped when Bob spotted a dome of green light above the building tops. His face went pale and his eyes became fearful.  
  
"I've stayed dormant for too long," he muttered under his breath. "I've screwed up. She's here now. I have to… to… to seek a hiding place. I have to find one. We must go. We must go NOW!"  
  
Bob then turned around and began walking quickly back to the apartment complex. He was fleeing, good God he had never seen that coming. Fleeing from the only human that stood a chance against him. Is that cowardice? Yes, he supposed it was. He didn't want to battle one who could possibly kill him before he could do anything else. That presented a dilemma; he wanted to stay away from her, but if he bided his time more, she would have a better chance of killing him in battle, and him a worse chance of getting some attention from the player so that he could be moved some more spaces and get involved in the game.  
  
He stopped at the door to the apartment complex. "We'll go tomorrow."  
  
Drusilla and Connor crowded in behind him. Bob stepped out of the way of the doorway, its door still wide open from their rushed exit, and let them file in ahead of him. He slammed the door behind him and the frame cracked. The body of the Venacklondage then began to burn like a Phoenix's, but, unlike a Phoenix, the Venacklondage would not be reborn.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
In her dream, the sound sounded like the flapping of a million doves' wings as the doves flew in circles around a certain patch of grass in the middle of a futuristic city--the type of city you might see in a movie like "The Fifth Element"--that had towering buildings and floating cars that zoomed through the sky.  
  
You wouldn't know you were a person, looking at those doves. You would feel free of body and mind. You would feel happy.  
  
That's how Faith felt as she sat in the middle of the circling doves with Dream Robin. His bald head--reflective and oddly attractive--was glowing in the sun's bright light.  
  
Faith smiled upon sight of Dream Robin. He smiled back.  
  
"How do you feel, Faith?" he asked. His voice seemed to float. The doves began to speed up.  
  
"I feel just fine," Faith replied. She felt as though she were about to cry… or burst from the swelling amount of happiness bubbling up inside of her. She imagined this is how Lester felt in "American Beauty" as he stared at the picture of him, his wife, and his daughter.  
  
"I am glad for you then," Dream Robin replied.  
  
Faith looked below her. She was floating. She was detached from the world. She was free. No more anger, no more fear, no more sadness. No more of anything. She liked it.  
  
She was away from the ghosts of the innocents she had slain that usually haunted her dreams… her nightmares. She was alone with Dream Robin Wood. She loved it.  
  
She then closed her eyes. Nothing this good comes free. Nothing. Always a price to pay.  
  
That's when Faith realized something: the sound of the doves didn't sound like doves at all.  
  
"What's going on?" Faith asked Dream Robin. He looked away. The sound was getting louder and more constant. It wasn't the circling doves. It was… It was….  
  
Gunfire.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Lorne, Angel, Oz, and Toby were still talking in the mess hall tent when the shooting began on the south side of the base. It was just a few random shots, nothing to be worried about. It could've just been a Mochlackdangodenack that had wandered into the base. It could've been a few of them, even. Then the shots were growing closer and more consistent.  
  
Lorne stood up so fast that he knocked over his chair. He thought it was a Jarlkarlone. The same went for Angel and the others. When the shots didn't stop they feared that it was a few Jarlkarlones instead of just one.  
  
It was Lorne who realized that it wasn't a Jarlkarlone; the clicking noise was not present as it always was when one was around. Before he could tell Angel this revelation Toby noticed the absence of the sound as well.  
  
Xander had been fast asleep in his tent when the blasting had woken him up. Dawn and Illyria were having a conversation about what it was like being human and non-human when a bullet blasted through the tent and shattered Dawn's mirror on the far side of the tent from her bed. Willow was sleeping beside Kennedy after a round in the bed when what seemed to be a very weak earthquake shook the tent around them and woke them up. The earthquake was then repeated several times before bullets began to fly. Faith was just being shocked awake as Robin left their bed and began to get dressed. Half of the tent had collapsed. Giles was in his studies when he heard faint gunfire and stepped outside to see what all the commotion was about. Gunn was in a deep sleep--deep enough for him not to wake up to the gunshots--and the sound penetrated his skull to enter his dreams much as it had Faith's dream. Monique, lying half-awake and half-asleep a few wheeled beds down, listened to the firing with a calmness that would not have been present had she not been drugged to dull the pain from the wound Zaerintoleran had delivered unto her.  
  
Buffy was riding in the scout tank Angel had told her to send to find Riley's tank. She still felt a dim love for him that she believed would never disappear. A flame that would never be extinguished. Spike was dead to world as he marched mechanically to the mess hall tent where Lorne still resided. He wasn't going there to confront Angel; just Lorne.  
  
He knew how Lorne was going to die and he had the chance to prevent it. He needed to warn Lorne about this strange man with a lot of muscles.  
  
A good thirty soldiers were dead before the Venacklondage reached Lindsey. Lindsey was watching in horror (kind of strange that a dead man would be scared) as it approached him one monstrous, slow, and deliberate step after the other.  
  
"Oh Jesus Christ," Lindsey said as the giant stopped taking steps and stood towering over him like a man towering over a hobbit in "The Lord of the Rings". It then bent down slowly and grabbed him just as slowly. It was like the thing didn't think that Lindsey would even dare run away.  
  
A couple of stray bullets hit Lindsey in the chest instead of the colossal creature they had been aimed at--how anyone could have missed such a big target is far beyond me, but it happened. Lindsey was quite surprised to find that he hadn't felt a thing from those bullets. It wasn't until later that he found the wounds, of course; he was too scared to care about them even if he had felt them.  
  
The Venacklondage then turned around and walked back the way it had come. Other than three or four unfortunate soldiers that were squashed under foot there were no more casualties. It left as peacefully as it had entered violently. The surviving soldiers, grasping their mostly emptied guns, mused over the fact that they didn't appear to have even hurt it. Not even give it the equivalent of a bee-sting or a splinter despite the fact that over a thousand bullets must've hit it. It was that night that most of the soldiers realized just how dangerous the situation was. Thirty abandoned the base over the night. About half of them were killed by Mochlackdangodenacks while the rest escaped.  
  
Their abandonment dealt a great blow to Angel and his little army after the great loss of life that had been experienced that night (most notable of the deaths were those of Riley and Sam). The chances of the Apocalypse being averted were just what they had been for every other apocalypse they had ever encountered: slim to none.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
The crater was gigantic. Buffy was impressed even after seeing the crater where all of Sunnydale had once been. She was partially relieved to find no bodies or machinery anywhere in the crater. No sign of Riley in this barren area. They found Ashley sitting in the center of the crater with her head against her knees and her hands grasping at the softened ground she was sitting on. She wasn't crying or anything. Buffy half-expected the girl to be insane and homicidal. She was relieved when Ashley looked up at her with a face that seemed way too clean to be true. Ashley didn't smile as you would expect any person with a clean face like that to. She knew that whatever she had done had probably eliminated the existence of several escaping soldiers--too bad for her she didn't know they had all been killed before she had unleashed her power. Her face was sad.  
  
"Hello," she whispered to Buffy and said no more until morning.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Spike grabbed the collar of Lorne's shirt. Lorne was the only entity that seemed real to him at that point. Spike then pulled Lorne into the alley he had been waiting for him in.  
  
"Spike!" Lorne exclaimed and sighed in relief. He had worried that it was a Jarlkarlone or that thing that had tramped through the base and taken Lindsey.  
  
"He's going to kill you," Spike stated bluntly. "And he's going to enjoy it."  
  
Lorne raised an eyebrow. "Too much of that special stuff, Spikey? Who are you talking about?"  
  
"I was shown your death. He's going to kill you. I don't know when, all I know is that he's going to decapitate you."  
  
Lorne chuckled in spite of the news. "Decapitation can't kill me."  
  
"He's then going to burn your body."  
  
"Oh… Who are you talking about Spike? Who's going to kill me?" his voice was growing shrill.  
  
Spike looked both ways and then leaned in close. "H-He arrived tonight. A-A-A lot of muscles this man has. Too many bloody damn muscles."  
  
"What's his name?"  
  
"He arrived today in a truck he had driven down here from New York. Not the city. He came w-w-w-with this kid."  
  
"What… is… his… name?"  
  
"I don't know his name."  
  
"What about the kid's?"  
  
Spike shook his head. Then he leaned in even closer and whispered so low that Lorne had to strain to hear him. "The kid's a bloody, pure-D werewolf. Oz."  
  
Lorne's eyes widened.  
  
"Toby?" he whispered back.  
  
That's when Spike returned back to reality. He looked around himself. "What the hell am I doing in this alley?"  
  
"Lorne!" Oz called from the mouth of alley. Then he saw Spike. "Get the hell away from him!"  
  
"Oh shove off and follow the yellow-brick road you ass."  
  
Spike then walked past Oz and turned down the street. He had no memory of warning Lorne of his death, but he did remember that he had seen Lorne's death and assumed he had already delivered the warning.  
  
Lorne explained Spike's situation to Oz and they rejoined Angel and Toby--Lorne kept an eye on Toby, of course. Other than those who had any business with any of those deceased, everything went back to normal for the rest of the night.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()**  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. When Spike said 'follow the yellow-brick road' to Oz, I hope you got the joke (here's a hint: it has to do with a movie called "The Wizard of Oz"). The next chapter will be up soon… I hope. And the title is mocking that of the movie that I think is called "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman". See you next chapter. Please review.  
  
"Thank you for trying to teach me, sir. Don't give up on me, Dad." - Ricky "American Beauty"


	13. Another Day

**Chapter Thirteen:  
Another Day**  
  
The night had seemed to take forever to end. Even after the Venacklondage had left. Toby wasn't highly trusted by anyone thus far--why should he?--and Angel needed to make certain Toby wouldn't go on a killing spree the moment his back was turned. So Toby was injected with a drug that made him go to sleep the moment he closed his eyes. When he woke up in the morning there were a couple of soldiers watching him sleep.  
"What the hell?" Toby grumbled in a very groggy voice as he stared with bloodshot eyes at the two soldiers standing there, both of them with guns slung over their shoulders watching him. It took the half-sleeping body-builder a few moments to remember just where he was and what had happened in the last couple of days. Not enough had happened to him for him to fully wish he couldn't remember the last couple days, and, this is unfortunate for him, he would never get the chance to wish he didn't remember what had happened. He was appalled that he was considered a possible threat.  
The soldiers did nothing to reply to him. All they did was stare at him. It was creeping him out.  
Angel then walked in. He stood in front of the two soldiers. "Sorry about this," Angel apologized to Toby. "You have to understand that this is the Apocalypse and you just rolled into town…" Toby nodded his head and got out of bed. He was wearing camouflage pants and a white shirt. "I understand." He wasn't yet entirely awake and he would've said he understood anything Angel said. He then sighed. "I need to take a piss." He looked up at Angel. "You won't be watching me in there, would you?" Angel shook his head. "No." "Good. I don't want a bunch of perverts watching me respond to nature's call." Angel cracked a smile and chuckled.  
"Where's the restroom?" Angel pointed at a patch of the ten that was brown instead of vanilla like the rest, and that patch was a flap. Toby went in there without another word.  
He took a rather painful piss (he had gotten a urinary infection a day ago, and all of his pisses thus far had been exceedingly painful--sometimes to the point that he needed to bite into his lip to keep from screaming). He then made a note to get those pills before the day was over. He motioned to flush the toilet, but there was no flusher. He sighed. It was like an outhouse, of course there was no flusher.  
He looked at his face in the mirror. It had been a week since he had shaved and it was quite obvious. He wrinkled his nose as the smell of the tent's material registered. He had never liked the smell of tents. The mirror was hanging from the tent. If there had been anything else--such as a sink and a razor and shaving cream--he would've taken care of his shaving problem.  
"That's another thing you gotta take care of before the day's over Toby old bo--" Then Toby knew no more.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Toby--or something that looked like him, anyway--was following Angel and Lorne through the base fifteen minutes later. Angel had just gotten the message that Buffy needed to see him. She was at the medical tent.  
He pushed through the flap and saw Gunn and Monique immediately. There were a few soldiers added to the roster of those in bed, now. Angel was thinking maybe Riley and some of his team were there, but none of the new people caught his eye--that is, except for the teenage girl on the furthest one from him. She didn't look too beat-up and would probably be out by the end of the day if she woke up before then.  
Buffy was standing above the unconscious form of Ashley. She was looking at Angel and a tear had traveled down her face. Angel didn't need her to tell him what had happened for he already knew. Riley's team was dead and the tank was lost.  
They hugged and Buffy kept herself from crying. Angel understood her pain; he had lost a love before. Even though Riley wasn't her current love, he was a past love.  
"We didn't even find a trace of them," Buffy told him. Her voice cracked at the end. "Just a big hole… and her." Angel looked at the girl. The only survivor. And she barely had a scratch on her. Buffy then pulled away from him. Lorne tried to offer some comfort, but Buffy left. The thing that looked like Toby looked at the unconscious girl. It wondered if it was going to need to kill her.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()**  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. Sorry for such a short chapter. The next one will be longer, that I promise. I hope you liked this one despite the fact that it was oh so short. See you then.  
  
" 'Time is on my side. Yes it is. Time is on my side. Yes it is. Now you always say that you wanna be free. But I'll come running back. I'll come running back to you!' " - Azazel singing a song "Fallen" 


	14. Gwen

**Chapter Fourteen:  
Gwen  
**  
A condominium's lights flared suddenly, bathing the surrounding area with a bluish light. Inside of an apartment on the fifth floor an attractive woman bolted into a sitting position from a dream of her possessing extreme power. She screamed and the lights went out. Light bulbs and televisions and radios and walkmans and so many other electronic devices exploded. Fragments eviscerated at least twenty innocent occupants of the condominium. It was midnight and most of them were torn apart in their sleep. At least thirty others died from the smoke that was thrown up by the suddenly blazing fires in their apartments.  
The woman's apartment is large and well-furnished from years of burglary. It had a few cameras positioned here and there along with a panic room where she could watch what the cameras displayed. She would never again store a person of possible importance in a room like that, not after that unfortunate incident with Manny, a totem that was being hunted down by a big, mean demon with a couple of horns and a lot of blood on its hands two years ago. She looked around herself. She didn't feel awake. She felt… odd. She felt like she was floating, a bystander in what was going on rather than a participant, which she was… in a way.  
She hadn't wanted to go out of her bedroom when she had heard her name called from right outside the door.  
"Gwen," it called. The voice sounded familiar. "Gwen!" it reiterated, slightly impatient this time. So Gwen went to the door. She paused and slipped on her long, black gloves before she touched the metal handle and turned it. Outside she saw a figure standing in the shadows. The figure was tall and slim and holding a wine glass in its right hand. Gwen reacted by flipping the light switch and pulling off her gloves. Unfortunately the expected light did not come.  
"I wouldn't step forward if I were you," the familiar voice said from the shadows. Gwen heard two footsteps on the red, plush carpet of the hall. "You're barefoot and there's a lot of broken glass lying about." Gwen held her hands up, ready to electrocute this man, this familiar-sounding man.  
"I have a question for you: why are you a cat burglar? You should just march into a restaurant of some kind with a gun pointed and shout at the customers and employees to keep cool and no one would get hurt. No one will give a shit, really. There's the waitresses who, as sure as the sun will rise, wouldn't take a bullet for the cash register… or the wallets of the customers." Gwen had heard a speech similar to this in a movie before. Her eyes widened as she realized who was speaking to her.  
Quentin Tarantino held up a finger which then burst into brilliant light. His odd-looking, aging face stared at her with a smile. That's when Gwen understood she was dreaming.  
Quentin Tarantino held out his left hand with the lit finger for a hand-shake. Gwen had removed her gloves and wasn't about to electrocute this genius filmmaker.  
"Shake my hand," Quentin Tarantino ordered. "I won't bite." "Maybe I will," Gwen replied, understanding that this was from the same movie that the restaurant-robbing speech had been from, except a bit different.  
"Bites I can handle." Gwen reluctantly shook Mr. Tarantino's hand. "My name's Richard," the thing in the form of Quentin Tarantino stated. "My friends call me Dick." Richard then withdrew his hand with the lit finger that reminded Gwen of E.T. and laughed. Suddenly Uma Thurman is standing in front of her with a yellow, blood-coated suit and a motorcycle helmet in her right hand instead of the wine glass Tarantino had been holding. "Do you remember a certain vampire who's just so chock-full of soul?" An image of the handsome vampire whose heart she had once shocked into pumping popped into her head immediately. Shortly followed by it was the Beast. She winced and Uma Thurman chuckled.  
"You don't need to worry about that guy anymore, Gwen," Thurman informed her. "He's long-gone. Anyway, you need to get your ass over to Los Angeles quick, quick, quick. You're missing all the fun! Just this morning before the sun rose you missed Toby getting killed and yesterday you missed a Venacklondage getting killed by Bob, another Venacklondage stealing Lindsay from the base, and Lorne, Oz, and Toby entering the base! You even missed Riley's death. Don't you wish you had been there for Riley's death?" "Bob?" Gwen said, still a bit shocked at having seen two of her idols and having conversations with them.  
Tim Roth howled laughter. His tuxedo was soaked in blood and his face was pale. He held an empty pistol in his right hand. He then spoke with his English accent fading in and out. "You also missed Connor getting kidnapped and Drusilla's boobs. Right now you're missing Drusilla, Connor, and Bob all going to the base. Then you'll miss a flashy battle and some death. Do you want to miss that?" Gwen stood there silently, not certain of how to respond.  
Tim Roth smiled. "Didn't think you did. But you will. Los Angeles is more than a day or two's drive away." Gwen, like Toby, was residing New York. She, however, was living in the city rather than a town east of the city like Toby had been.  
"I need to go to Los Angeles?" Gwen inquired.  
"Yes," Richard replied. He was now in between forms, choosing who to appear as next. What was left behind was a humanoid blob of jelly-like material, white in color. His voice was like that of an automated answering machine's.  
"Tonight?" Gwen asked.  
"If you don't want to miss out on all of the fun," Richard was now Sigourney Weaver in a spacesuit. In Richard's right hand was now a harpoon gun. Richard then clapped twice and Gwen sat up in bed. She was undressed and sweating profusely. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly. Her brown hair was sticking to her head.  
Gwen got up and walked across her bedroom. The lights were still destroyed and fires were raging in many rooms. Only Gwen's encounter with Richard had been a dream. Richard had seeped into her brain to tell her what he wanted to tell her. He hadn't wanted to go into detail about what she was supposed to do to help stop the Apocalypse when she got to Los Angeles because that would take too long and she might miss out on some of the fun that would take place before her part in the Apocalypse was over.  
Gwen shrieked as she stepped barefoot onto a burning hot shard from her alarm clock. She leapt back and fell to the carpeted floor. She tried to look at her foot but couldn't see due to the lack of light. She knew she was bleeding; she could feel the blood flowing down her foot. She also felt the shard sticking into her foot.  
She reached to her foot and grabbed the darkest part of her foot and found it to be the shard. She screamed as she pulled the large portion of her alarm clock out of her skin, releasing more blood.  
That's when she realized that there was a surge going through her system that felt much like adrenaline. She felt powerful. Much more powerful than she had before falling asleep.  
Then every ounce of strength left her body. She fell limp to the floor, unable to even blink or think. It was all gone. Every bit of her power.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Every single building in New York City was affected. Every single electronic device. Thousands died as the devices overloaded and blew up.  
An infant named Max Fergundson was killed as his baby monitor detonated. His parents were killed as the baby monitor in their room blew up as well.  
An apartment building crumbled as all of the cars in the parking garage exploded, killing everyone in the building except for a lucky few rescued the next day.  
Ellis Island's few buildings were destroyed. Roosevelt Island suffered a hundred deaths and two collapsed buildings. Manhattan Island was the worse, of course. Seventy thousand died. A hundred or so buildings collapsed.  
Rodney Remus, seventeen years old, had his throat slashed by his demolished television's shards. His girlfriend, to whom he had just lost his virginity, woke up to his dead body seconds later.  
A toy store was wiped off the face of the Earth as every single one of its five hundred electronic toys blew up. One half of a tall building across the street fell to the ground. The sewer systems backfired and toilets and sinks began to explode as well. Shelia Ramsie, nineteen and home to visit her parents for her summer away from college, was about to lift up the seat of a toilet when it was propelled upwards by an ungodly amount of force to decapitate her.  
Every plane at every airport was destroyed. Those just passing by New York City suffered a total loss of passengers. The airports themselves were filled with fire as monitors and security systems overpowered.  
Beatrice Delmond, thirty-four, was talking to her sister in Africa on a cell phone when the cell phone destroyed half her face.  
Those using or near phone booths were killed by flying debris as the phones detonated.  
Sean Berds was typing a story on his computer when the monitor's shards lashed out and eviscerated his face.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Gwen's apartment building was surrounded by explosions and debris. She sat up screaming as power beyond any she had ever dreamed of having rushed into her mind. Her mind adjusted quickly to this new power… if it hadn't, then her head would've been on the walls and ceiling. Blood dribbled out of her nose in a lazy river.  
Then her power left her again.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Millions were dead in the morning. In Albany buildings collapsed and phones blew up. Light bulbs threw glass in all directions and children up late watching TV knew nothing more.  
Harry Vega was checking his wrist watch at his friend's request and his arm and face were destroyed. He lived for three hours before blood loss killed him. His friend, Kevin Nerg was blown in half by his walkman, walkie-talkie, and cell phone, all in his pockets.  
Zachary Xylophone was out on Chautauqua Lake, listening to Korn when the radio blew up and sunk the boat he was in along with slashing his ear and his stomach.  
Quentin Desmond was micro waving some Chef Boyardee when his microwave blew up and killed him.  
Bill Derrick had insomnia and had just replaced an old light bulb when it overloaded in his face.  
Jack Frierson was listening to the couple in the apartment next to his have sex when his camcorder, television, CD player, alarm clock, overhead light, VCR, and DVD player all conspired to kill him.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Gwen sat up again. This time blood was gushing through her nose. She was screaming but she couldn't hear anything but a very loud ringing. Her brain was taking more time to adjust now. This power that she didn't know existed. Had never dreamed existed in her wildest dreams. While she didn't have as much power as Bob, she still had much more than the United States army. This was enough power for her. She didn't want anymore. Richard wanted her to have more, though.  
All her power left once again…  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Angel was walking down through the base after a hard day's hibernation. Before sunrise he had been in the medical tent and from there he had busted his ass to get to his own tent before the sun peaked over the horizon at him to smite him.  
He had just left the medical tent after waiting for ten minutes for Gunn to wake up. No luck yet. Now he was just walking aimlessly, looking for a purpose to be alive. Dawn and Illyria were getting to be good friends. They had just walked by Angel talking. Dawn had been smiling while Illyria had been expressionless. Xander was eating with Willow and Kennedy in the mess hall tent. Faith and Robin were out hunting the remainder of the Mochlackdangodenacks while Giles was with Lorne, Oz, and Toby, researching the Apocalypse in his musty, old text books. Angel tried to evade the thought of Giles because Giles reminded him of Wesley too much.  
Buffy was sleeping in her tent, which--oh, so lucky for her--was devoid of electronics. She was probably dreaming of Riley and the times they had spent together fighting demons. She was probably dreaming of the time that they couldn't speak, the time that they had found out about each other, about the time that they had defeated the Gentlemen together.  
Spike's location was unknown to Angel. Spike was traveling through the city with a big-ass axe, hunting any demon for him to kill.  
Also unknown to Angel was the fact that Lindsay was standing on top of a building and looking down upon Venacklondages and Jarlkarlones alike. His mind was being poisoned and he held all of these demons under his control.  
Angel was thinking about how Cordelia had looked the last time he had seen her. Not the last time he had seen the real Cordelia in the flesh, but the last time he had seen the real Cordelia at all. He wanted to be angry with Connor because he had destroyed what Angel and Cordelia might have had, but he didn't want to be angry with Connor because he didn't know whether or not it was Connor's fault. Not to mention Connor was his son.  
Speaking of Connor, he, Drusilla, and Bob were all halfway across the city, floating on air. They would've reached the base within fifteen minutes and began a massacre, but what happened next stopped their progress.  
  
Dawn looked up curiously as the lights began to grow bright. Music blared through dead windows and deserted buildings. Television programs screamed their jokes and threats and violence out into the night.  
When a dozen computers in the building next to Dawn and Illyria overloaded and blew, a large, wooden beam skewered Illyria. Dawn was nearly killed by flying glass and a few bricks.  
Gunn, Monique, and a few other soldiers in the medical tent had their gurneys and beds tipped over by the explosions. Those closer to the medical equipment were shredded to ribbons.  
Buffy's tent gave out and she was covered in the thick blanket.  
Xander lost his arm as a table propelled by a large explosion of machinery slammed into him and severed most of his muscles and nerves in his left arm.  
Willow reacted quick enough to keep anything from hitting her, but a fourth of a coffee-maker smacked Kennedy in the face, putting her in a coma.  
Angel was impaled by a pole that barely missed his spine. He was stuck up on the side of a building by that pole.  
Exploding light bulbs and buildings killed nearly half of the Initiative army that remained. Faith and Robin survived the explosions with no scratches or bruises.  
Three Venacklondages and a dozen Jarlkarlones were killed. Two-hundred Mochlackdangodenacks were reduced to nothing more than piles of blood and guts and armor.  
Lindsay was unaffected.  
Connor was hit by a dozen bricks and fell to the ground. Bob turned back and shielded himself from flying debris. He then repaired Connor's broken body with his mind. His attention given to Connor was punished with Drusilla getting impaled by a wooden sliver that penetrated her heart. Her dust collected on the street.  
Spike hit the deck when the explosions began and escaped injury.  
In Washington, D.C., the President was obliterated by the cameras that were trained on him as he was giving his speech about why Los Angeles had been evacuated. His lie.  
Everyone in the country--except those in Hawaii, who were too far away to be affected--who was watching was killed. The death toll soared sky-high. Nearly seventy percent of the country was dead in the morning.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
The pain was too much for Gwen to feel when the power came back. No one had ever felt the pain that Gwen did in that moment. Billion… shit, octillions of messages of pain were being registered by her brain every second. Blood poured down her nude body from her nose in rapids.  
She nearly died. When she emerged alive and well, she was more powerful than Illyria had been back in her day. And the United States of America was in ruins.  
Richard, as Quentin Tarantino, smiled at her. "That's it. You're ready."  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()  
**  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I was gonna save this for a chapter or two, but I had to post it right away when Charming Slayer inquired about Gwen. The answer to your question, Charming Slayer, is quite obviously 'yes… with a vengeance.' Sorry for the short, pathetic chapter thirteen and long time between updates. See you next chapter.  
  
"Nobody ever robs restaurants. Why not?" - Ringo (played by Tim Roth in a movie by Quentin Tarantino that stars Uma Thurman as well) "Pulp Fiction"


	15. Aftermath

**Chapter Fifteen:**  
**Aftermath**  
  
Buffy was panicking. She couldn't breathe. She pushed the tent's material up again and again to gain only a small amount of oxygen. It was hard to crawl under its weight. Her fingernails were getting torn off as she scraped the ground to pull herself forward. It was hot. Very hot. She was sweating and suffocating.  
Just when she was about to give up and die she hit the end of the tent. She took in a deep breath and relished the air. Then she saw the chaos and destruction and carnage laid out before her. The soldiers that hadn't been killed were either clutching their bleeding limbs and screaming as they died or unconscious and dying. Blood was everywhere. Dead bodies were everywhere. Buildings had collapsed and she didn't realize until later just how lucky she had been that the tent hadn't been trapped under debris.  
Then she thought of Dawn. She ran off right after thinking about Dawn. She couldn't deal with Dawn's death.  
As she ran to Dawn she saw dead Slayers. Slayers who had been there last year to battle the First. Slayers who she had trained and prepared. Then she thought of the others. Xander, Willow, Kennedy, Faith, Angel, Robin, Spike, Giles, Oz. She felt a big pit in her stomach. She searched for her sister.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Dawn stared up into the night sky. Stars were twinkling. Smoke was partially concealing them. Light from dozens of fires was concealing them. Buildings were concealing them. The ground was so uncomfortable.  
She couldn't talk, she could only swallow more blood and saliva. She could feel many scratches on her body from flying glass. She was bleeding. These weren't shallow cuts. She felt pain or numbness in many places where loose bricks had connected with her. She somehow conjured up enough strength to turn her head to the side.  
Illyria was lying on the ground, her mid-section arched a little bit because the wooden beam that had impaled her was propping her up. Dawn was surprised that Illyria's blood was red. Illyria was staring into the sky with a blank stare that creeped Dawn out. It was blanker than any stare Illyria had ever had in Dawn's presence. Blood was everywhere. Puddles. Big puddles. Illyria's mouth was partially open. Dawn thought that Illyria was dead. Illyria… the one who had saved her from that demon. From the voice.  
Dawn closed her eyes, ready to die or pass out, whichever came first. Just before she passed out she heard Buffy's voice, distant yet still distinct, shouting her name over and over again before screaming inarticulately her fear and rage and grief. Then Dawn was temporarily saved from the pain.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
"What the bloody fucking hell is going on?" Spike asked in a shrill voice as he spotted Faith and Robin climbing over rubble.  
"I don't have any clue," Faith replied. Her voice was worried and Spike understood why she should be worried.  
"We should get to the base now," Robin stated. He was holding his forehead. Spike could smell blood, yet he couldn't really see it. Robin's skin color and the lack of light were conspiring to conceal the blood.  
"Yeah," Spike said, his voice calm and his head nodding slightly. "We should." It took them nearly a half hour to get to the base. They trudged through puddles of water provided by the backed-up sewer systems and climbed over mountains of flotsam and jetsam. When they did they immediately spotted Angel. He was hanging two feet above the sidewalk on a building side because a metal pole and driven itself into his lower mid-section. His head was hanging and he was unconscious. Faith feared for a moment that Angel was dead, but then remembered that he would be nothing but dust if he was. The building across the street from Angel was partially demolished.  
"Jesus," Robin breathed. He was looking at all of the dead bodies of soldiers. The color red was too common in that sight for comfort.  
"Find the others," Faith ordered Spike as she grasped the pole stuck in Angel and began to pull.  
"I doubt they're living and breathing," Spike stated. Faith glared at him.  
"Find them," she repeated through gritted teeth. Robin joined in on the pulling, not that the Slayer needed help.  
"Okay, yeah, okay." Spike turned to the base and walked forward to find any survivors.  
Faith and Robin got the pole out and Angel tumbled to the ground. He was still unconscious. Faith turned him over onto his back.  
"Go find others, Robin," Faith ordered.  
"Yeah," Robin replied and followed Spike. Faith picked up Angel with ease and began to carry him to the medical tent, hoping it was still there.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
"NO! Not again! Not again! Kennedy! Kennedy!" Willow was holding Kennedy's head up and tears were streaming down her cheeks. Kennedy's face was bruised and swollen and bleeding. There were soldiers walking around and screaming for their unconscious or dead friends. Willow searched her mind frantically for an incantation to wake Kennedy up. In her panic she found none.  
"KENNEDY!" she shrieked. She looked to the mess hall tent's flap and saw a man with blooding running down his face standing there and crying. A Slayer was next to him and surveying the tent. The Slayer looked alright other than a large bruise on her arm. "Help!" she screamed at them and they ignored her. "HELP!" They either couldn't or wouldn't hear her.  
The Slayer left and the soldier dropped to his knees. A man was running around and screaming with his left hand chopped or blown off. "Oh GOD!" the man screamed. He was pale.  
Another man was clutching his bleeding stomach. Blood. Guts. Body parts. Everywhere.  
Then Willow looked at Xander. He was holding his limp arm disbelievingly. He was muttering something under his breath over and over again that sounded like "I'm a one-armed, one-eyed man." Willow fought back at a surfacing evil she had hoped was behind her.  
Evil Willow was trying to come back and Willow was fighting back with every ounce of power she had.  
She didn't think she could suppress evil, veiny, Willow for long.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Connor jerked awake suddenly and groaned at the stiffness in his back and arms. He had no knowledge of the fact that he had been pummeled nearly to death by flying bricks only an hour or so ago. He looked around himself and felt the blood drain from his head.  
So much destruction. So many collapsed buildings. He could hear fire nearby.  
He was suddenly certain that the Apocalypse had occurred. He stood up and began to walk aimlessly through Los Angeles. As he walked away he stepped into the dust of Drusilla.  
  
Before the explosions…  
  
Lorne was being reminded too much of Wesley by Giles. He was being filled with unbelievable grief for the ex-Watcher. They were trying to figure out what Oz had to do with the Apocalypse. No luck thus far. And Toby was acting odd… mechanical, actually. No personality. And his stature was a bit different. If Lorne had known him for more than a day or two he could've put his finger on what about Toby's stature was different, but, alas, Lorne had only known the man for less than a day before his death, which Lorne didn't know about.  
What was different about Toby was his size. He was two inches taller and two inches wider. He was bloated. It appeared as though his body were containing something more than organs and bones… So Lorne was reading an old, musty book for references to Oz. Giles had told them to look for something more along the lines of 'werewolf' or 'Lycanthrope' because prophecies never mentioned names. So book after book they read.  
Five minutes later they would all be unconscious, but between then and the explosions the following occurred.  
The Bolinkodagenat was what was inside of Toby. It had been throwing around the thought of just killing all of them all day and had just reached a decision. It grabbed one of Giles's swords, which was lying on top of a big box of weapons, and stood up. It took two running steps to Lorne, who was closest, and lifted the sword, meaning to decapitate the green demon. Its plan was to kill the others after decapitating Lorne, and to then come back and destroy Lorne's body. Things didn't go according to plan.  
Lorne, who had been keeping a watchful eye on Toby all day, heard the running steps and leapt from the chair he was sitting in, knowing Toby was trying to kill him and glad that the waiting was over. The sword hit nothing but air. The Bolinkodagenat turned its attention to Oz, who had just chucked his book at it and missed. It smiled.  
Oz felt panic--an extremely rare feeling for him--and then he changed. He hadn't even realized he had changed until he was looking at the thing that looked like Toby through red-tinted eyes.  
The Bolinkodagenat paused for a second and stared at the werewolf before continuing his charge. He was batted away by an enormous paw and slammed head-first into Giles's desk. Giles was grabbing his tranquilizer gun and about to aim it at Oz, wondering why he had changed because there was no full moon that night. Oz held up a finger and shook it back and forth to signal 'no'.  
Giles paused after this human gesture and watched as Oz hurled the Bolinkodagenat across the tent. It came to a halt just before sliding right out of the tent's flap. Oz howled.  
Toby, still holding his sword, went after Lorne again.  
That's when the explosions began. The Bolinkodagenat was trapped under half of the tent as it collapsed. Oz tore a hole through the material and Lorne, Giles, and Oz filed out.  
That's when the Bolinkodagenat revealed itself. All hell broke loose.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Ashley woke up and noticed immediately that she was trapped. She couldn't see anything because it was too dark. She began to panic.  
She screamed.  
  
**()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()  
**  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you enjoyed this update. The fight between Oz and the Bolinkodagenat will be included in next chapter. Even more of the aftermath will be included in the next two chapters before they all get themselves under control.  
Will I bring Evil Willow in? You'll have to wait to find out. For those of you who never saw the sixth season finale for "Buffy", Evil Willow is quite destructive. But only watch the episodes once because the second time you'll notice that Alyson Hannigan isn't a good actress when she's trying to be evil and you won't enjoy the episodes as much. They're still good episodes, though.  
Anyway, more on the characters later. I didn't have a long time to write this, otherwise it would be longer. See you all next chapter. Oh, and I'm allowed to say the F-word at least once in this story because it's PG-13. I don't think I can say it more than once in a PG-13 story, though.  
  
"I did a thing today so he couldn't have you. I was wrong. You made me weak and then you hurt me." - Francis Dolarhyde "Red Dragon" 


	16. The Bolinkodagenat Terrorizes People

**Chapter Sixteen:**  
**The Bolinkodagenat Terrorizes People**  
  
Oz stared at the twenty-foot creature in front of him, towering over him. It would be hard to see in the night if it wasn't outlined by the fire behind it. Even in his werewolf form Oz didn't think he could do anything to it (he had matured since Sunnydale, so his wolf form had grown a good ten feet taller.  
The Bolinkodagenat thrust out one giant claw to grab Oz's leg. Oz leapt over the claw and lashed out with his own, succeeding in penetrating the thing's passing arm's shell, which then poured green blood. Oz didn't see the other claw coming for him because of the lack of light, and it smacked him across the street and into the debris of a recently collapsed building.  
Oz howled in pain and got up shakily. The fur under his right armpit was bloody where one of the thing's claws and scraped him. He then roared in pain and leapt up into the sky. He landed on top of the Bolinkodagenat and scratched it continuously until he was batted away and into a surviving building. The thing now had claw marks on its face. Oz hadn't succeeded in penetrating the shell that time.  
Again Oz howled in pain. He got up quickly and charged again. He noted as he charged that the part of the shell he had penetrated was then no longer penetrated.  
He stopped his charge when he heard a groaning behind him. The Bolinkodagenat was backing away as it stared up and behind Oz.  
Leaping to the side Oz still didn't know what was happening. He did when the building he had been knocked into smacked into the ground, creating a miniature earthquake that caused Lorne, Giles, Oz, and the Bolinkodagenat to lose their footing. Oz was up first and on top of the camouflaged creature, slashing and slashing. The Bolinkodagenat screeched and then thrust its head forward. Its pincers punctured Oz's neck and blood poured out. He roared and leapt away from the beast.  
The Bolinkodagenat was on its inverted legs a moment later and charging at the wounded Lycanthrope.  
Oz knew he was going to be dead. He accepted it as his fur became sticky and wet with the red, oxygen-carrying liquid of life.  
Death didn't come, however. The Bolinkodagenat stopped with its left claw still raised. It turned its head slowly to the right. It was sensing a great magical force close by.  
It leapt hastily in the direction of the magical force. Over collapses and standing buildings alike it jumped and hurled itself forward. And Oz bled.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Willow had her hand pressed against Kennedy's head. She was concentrating on getting Kennedy out of the coma she was in. There were no incantations. No Latin. No fancy ingredients. It was just the magick inside of her working.  
Suddenly light and darkness traded places. The shadows behind tables, chairs, people, etcetera where suddenly bright. Light was the weak and darkness was the powerful.  
For several long seconds it remained like that as Willow searched the mind of her loved one for any sign of life--Willow was under the impression that Kennedy was dead--and by doing so she sent out a great sense of magick for any demon to notice and be attracted to.  
When everything went back to normal, Kennedy was staring up at Willow.  
"What happened?" Kennedy asked, her voice monotone and mechanic, like she didn't understand the question and didn't care what the answer was.  
"KENNEDY!" Willow shouted in ecstasy and relief. She then hugged Kennedy and kissed her, not knowing that she had performed a spell to bring an already alive person back to life. "I'm so glad you're back. You were gone. I brought you back!" Xander was still muttering in disbelief that he had lost his arm. Soldiers were running around in the background screaming in pain or shouting for one of their friends or family members. Blood was prominent. But, for the moment, all was right for Willow Rosenberg.  
"Willow…" Kennedy muttered as if she were seeing this red-headed witch for the first time in a very long time.  
"That's right, baby," Willow said and looked into Kennedy's eyes. That's when all of the happiness and relief at having Kennedy back drained. That's when she realized she had made a big mistake.  
That's also when the Bolinkodagenat pulled the tent covering off of the mess hall and screeched.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
"HELP!" Buffy shrieked as she carried Dawn through the streets full of dead or dying soldiers and fire and demolished buildings. Blood was flowing out of Dawn's body and down Buffy's vanilla shirt and black pants. "HELP!" she shouted again. A nearly dead soldier with a gash in his forehead looked at Buffy and had enough time to think "no help" before death took him.  
Buffy then thought of Willow and Xander. They could help. They had always been there for Buffy and Dawn. They would help. So Buffy then set off for the mess hall tent, where Willow had told Buffy she, Xander, and Kennedy would be.  
Tears crawling down her face, Buffy climbed over rubble and over dead bodies. Dawn was getting heavy and Buffy wasn't sure how long it would be before she had to stop.  
Then she saw the tent. Soldiers were surrounding it, bleeding and crying. A couple were crying as they hugged their comrades, who had been alive when the hug had begun but weren't anymore.  
Buffy took two steps forward before she stopped.  
Very small earthquakes were shaking the ground. The dying soldiers all looked to the side, down the street. A twenty-foot, insect-like monstrous being was headed towards the tent. A few were too weak to run and a few didn't care while many fled as fast as they could in their injured state.  
The black creature tore the tent away to expose the tables, food, and people beneath.  
It looked at Willow with its intense, red-and-black eyes. It reached for her.  
That's when an injured and bleeding werewolf slammed into it and knocked it down. Oz was trying to hang on and fight this thing… to keep it from Willow, his love.  
The force of his attack was so surprising that the Bolinkodagenat didn't react for the next few moments.  
When it regained its senses it swatted Oz away with an annoyed grunt. This time Oz was too weak to get back up… or to even sustain his wolf form.  
The Bolinkodagenat then turned back to Willow, who was staring up at it with wide eyes knowing that nothing could stop it from what it was going to do.  
But, luckily for her, something did.  
Buffy felt a strong sense of anger from something as the Bolinkodagenat looked up into the sky. Anger and frustration from a higher being. Then she also felt a lot of fear… this more potent and closer. She could only assume it was coming from the hulking insect in front of her.  
Then there was no big, black bug in front of her. It had disappeared into thin air. Lorne and Giles then rounded the corner and stared at the form of a dying Oz.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Lindsey was sitting on the shoulder of a Venacklondage. So many Jarlkarlones and Venacklondages were standing in front of him along with a very small Zaerintoleran, who had been commended personally by Lindsey for being so successful in his mission to disable one of Angel's team's members. And also for getting the blood of a Slayer.  
That's when another creature appeared in the crowd. This one was a few inches taller than the tallest Venacklondage and was shining black. It was the Bolinkodagenat.  
"You stupid SHIT!" Lindsey shouted at the creature. It lowered its head in shame. "I told you… ORDERED you to keep yourself disguised. I know you were anxious to get out and stretch your limbs. Frankly I'm surprised you compressed yourself to a third your size to fit inside of a dead body, but that still doesn't justify your actions! I told you to kill Angel! Not ATTEMPT to kill Lorne! And what were you thinking when you went off to find Willow? You were about to KILL THE WEREWOLF! Killing him was more important than scratching the witch's cheek! I know you like to scratch the cheeks of witches, but NOW WAS NOT THE TIME!" The Bolinkodagenat then glared at Lindsey, whose mind had been poisoned by a higher power. Lindsey smiled. "Come here," he ordered. He then motioned with his finger. The creature took a few tentative steps forward. "Closer." Another few steps. "Closer." Another step brought the two face-to-face. Lindsey slapped the Bolinkodagenat and it screeched and retreated a couple steps.  
"DUMB ASS!"  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
She opened her eyes. She felt like it had been a very long time since she had done that.  
Illyria sat up and looked at the wooden beam protruding from her and sighed. She was bleeding a lot.  
Illyria gripped the beam tightly and pulled. She felt it moving inside of her and gritted her teeth to defy a scream of pain and disgust.  
Her organs were moved about and her bone fragments punctured her skin and organs. Blood spewed outwards as the beam came fully out.  
She smiled. She hadn't felt pain like that in quite some time.  
It was the last time she did.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
"Is anybody alive?" Spike shouted into the street. The wind was screaming and so were soldiers. He heard a big crash. That was another building collapsing. He was still thinking about the death he had been shown less than an hour ago. It had been the death of Illyria. This Death of Your Comrades Act had faded like a dream, however, and he could only recall fragments. He did remember the explosions in the vision and knew what they had been caused by. He also remembered something about a wooden beam.  
The air was cold for summer. Spike feared he was too late to save Illyria. That was a pity. He had always been amused by the ex-god.  
"Anybody? Anybody at all? Just raise your hand and I'll come to you! Anyone? Shit." Spike continued on, looking for Illyria more than any survivors. He didn't know the soldiers and couldn't care less about them despite his soulified state. He did care for Illyria.  
"IS ANYONE ALIVE?" Spike shouted down another dead street. A man across the street who was too devoid of energy to roll over onto his back mumbled into the ground for help in response to the voice. Spike didn't hear him and kept walking.  
"SOMONE ANSWER ME!" his voice was getting slightly shrill. He was wondering just how big a chance they had of getting through this considering almost everyone was dead.  
"HELLO?" That's when Spike spotted the form of Illyria. He smiled and ran forward two steps when he spotted the wooden beam and the blood. He was too late. He knew it. That was why the vision had faded. Because he didn't need it anymore. Just like the vision of Lorne's death had faded and Spike prayed that Lorne was alright. He had appreciated that green demon's presence.  
"Illyria?" Spike asked in a whisper and dropped to his knees next to the body. "Are you alright?" "Spike?" Illyria replied.  
"Yes, that's it," Spike said. Illyria turned over onto her back to expose her face and Spike found himself unable to speak.  
"Who's Illyria?" Fred Burkle asked.

* * *

Hey, MorbidMan here. Hope you enjoyed the sixteenth chapter of this story. Sorry, Imzadi, but Lindsey's gonna go through a lot of stuff in this story, and I don't want to give away if he'll wind up for the better or for the worse. Sorry, also, for spelling his name incorrectly a couple chapters back. I tried it that way because I had read it spelled that way. And, Tariq, this story will get a bit more confusing.  
I tried to bring a little humor back into the story with the portion on Lindsey, but I'm not sure if I was too stupid with the "scratching witches on their cheeks" part. It seemed like a funny idea at the time. Give me your angry review saying it was too stupid if you want.  
Thanks to all of my reviewers so far… even those who lost interest and aren't continuing to read it (where are you Violet SS?)  
See you next chapter.  
AND I KEEP FORGETTING THIS! Charles Gunn wasn't an actual Christian in this story, he just had some beliefs that stayed with him even after he stopped being a Christian that annoy him yet won't go away. And Monique doesn't believe in the Hell with Satan like Christians do, and she doesn't believe in the Heaven Christians do, either. She believes in Hell Dimensions, but not THE Hell. I'm realizing that DID come out of left-field, but I hope this clears it up a bit and makes it less ridiculous-sounding.  
  
"Something I've always been curious about, Elle. Just between us girls. What did you say to Pai Mei to make him snatch out your eye?" - Beatrix Kiddo "Kill Bill Vol. 2" (I just got it on DVD! Yippee!) 


	17. The Wounded and Getting Up to Date

** Chapter Seventeen:**  
**The Wounded and Getting Up to Date**  
  
Gwen couldn't believe how much destruction was there. Collapsed buildings. Charred and torn-up bodies. Blood. Fire. Smoke. It had all been caused by her. She knew that without having any reason to even suspect it. She had caused every bit of this suffering and destruction.  
She felt an odd sort of content feeling inside of her. She didn't want to be glad at seeing all of this and knowing she had caused it, but she was.  
Then she remembered where she was supposed to go: Los Angeles. She was supposed to rejoin Angel, the vampire with a soul. The only vampire with a soul--to her knowledge.  
She felt a tickling sensation in her hands. She looked down at them and was surprised to see them glowing bright and blue. She felt the electricity stored up in them. She smiled.  
"E.T. ain't got shit on this," she whispered to herself and laughed. Then she focused on putting her power to use. She felt a very, very small amount of her energy drain. Electric bolts shot out of her hands and slammed into invisible walls that made up a sphere. The ground began to melt along with the surrounding building debris. The bodies began to peel apart and burn.  
Gwen expected the metal zippers on her jeans and leather jacket to melt, but they were unaffected. As was she. Then she stopped the electrifying of all surrounding her.  
The tickling traveled up her arms. She looked down and saw that her arms were now glowing as well. Then the glow disappeared under the rolled up sleeves of her jacket. There was tickling in her feet now, too. She could see a bit of light escaping her white-and-red shoes. Her breasts tickled and her neck did, too. Her knees tickled and then her entire head tickled. She laughed.  
That's when David Carradine appeared in front of her. It was Richard, in the form of David Carradine from "Kill Bill Vol. 2". He was wearing clothing that slightly resembled that of a pirate's attire and spoke with a slight lisp.  
"That isn't the limit of your powers, sweetheart," he said. "You've got a bunch of other things you can do. Keep your mind focused on, oh, say, transportation--wink, wink--and you'll get a big surprise. Now, I'll leave you to your brand new bag." Then Richard disappeared and Gwen did what he suggested. She kept her mind focused on transportation.  
There was a great flash that wiped a tenth of the city off of the face of the Earth quite literally, and Gwen was gone.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Kennedy wasn't there. Her body was… but her soul was missing.  
This wasn't fair. Kennedy hadn't been dead after all… yet Willow had used a spell to bring her back from the dead. Now only a part of her was on Earth. The rest was somewhere else.  
"GILES!" Willow screamed. Kennedy was staring up at the night sky with a blank face. It was as blank as the faces of the dead soldiers surrounding them with their glazed eyes open and staring into eternity.  
Giles came over and kneeled down next to her.  
"She's not here," Willow told him. She then kept repeating that. "She's not here. She's not here. She's not here. I fucked up. She's not here." Lorne laid his jacket over the bleeding form of Oz. If he didn't get medical attention soon he would be dead. Lorne then spotted Buffy standing on top of a mountain of debris with Dawn in her arms. There was blood all over both of them. Lorne called her over.  
Buffy snapped out of whatever dream world she was in and ran to him. She set Dawn down and started crying.  
"I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do." Lorne was getting annoyed by the constant repetition of that fact, but he bit his tongue.  
"We need to get to the medical tent," he stated.  
"WILLOW!" Buffy shouted suddenly as if having an idea. "Willow knows spells! Willow can heal Dawn! WILLOW!" Willow wasn't paying attention, though. She was crying and asking Giles what to do to bring back the part of Kennedy that was missing.  
Xander got up with a great amount of effort and walked over to Buffy. He was holding his arm, making certain that it was still there and not believing it was there because he couldn't feel it. Saliva was dripping down his chin, but he didn't care. He collapsed next to Buffy and looked at Dawn.  
"Jesus," he moaned. "The blood." "I don't know what to do, Xand," Buffy stated. Her voice was panicky… not a shred of thought in it. "She's gonna die!" Alexander Harris then tore off the sleeve of his demolished arm and shredded it into small strips using his working hand and left foot. The strips he gave to Buffy and told her to wrap them very tightly around the really bad wounds. He wouldn't be able to wrap the strips because he only had one hand.  
Buffy nodded robustly and then did so. She then tore off her own sleeves and shredded them. Lorne watched as the two did this, not thinking about how he should be doing the same to Oz, who was very near death.  
Soon most of Dawn's wounds were covered. The four that weren't were on her stomach, and they didn't have a strip long enough to stretch around all of her despite her slim stature.  
Buffy pushed down on the three wounds that were close enough together for her to push down on with just two hands. Xander stood up.  
"W-We need… duct tape! We need duct tape!" He then took two running steps before looking at Lorne. "Cover his cuts!" he ordered promptly before running off to find duct tape and having no idea where to begin the search.  
Lorne then tore off his sleeves and shredded them into strips before wrapping two lightly around Oz's neck so as to not cut off his nose from his lungs, but to keep the blood from seeping out so quickly. He'd need duct tape as well. He then wrapped some around his arms and legs. He didn't have any lesions in his midsection. Lorne could see very many bruises and understood that many of his bones were broken.  
Lorne seriously doubted Oz's chances of survival.  
That's when the dead bodies of the soldiers were reanimated and began to stand up with a great need to feed.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Searing agony was all that Angel knew as he began to wake up. He was on the pavement of the street. When he opened his eyes all he saw was collapsed or burning buildings. He, like Connor, assumed that the Apocalypse had already happened.  
He looked down at himself and saw blood on his midsection. He then remembered the metal pole and cringed. He didn't like things getting shoved into him… I'm gonna rephrase that. He didn't like getting impaled.  
That's when he heard sobbing.  
He looked in the direction of the sobbing and saw the backs of three people. Spike, Faith, and Robin. None of them were crying.  
Then he heard a voice he had never expected to hear again in his eternal life. Fred's voice.  
"What happened?" she sobbed. "What happened!" Her voice cracked and she sobbed even harder.  
Angel leapt up and shot like a bullet to the crowd. He then saw Fred, dressed in Illyria's outfit, sitting in a pool of her own blood--blood that had come from the gigantic hole in her stomach--and crying.  
"FRED!" Angel shouted in glee. It was glee he hadn't experienced since his final days with Cordelia--the real Cordelia in flesh and blood, not the vision or the impostor. Angel took a step forward to hug Fred when she crawled backwards, babbling insanely.  
Spike ran forth and put his hands on her shoulders. He wanted to help her like she had helped him. Faith, Robin, and Angel gathered around the two.  
"Fred," Spike said. Fred looked at him, tears leaving clear trails amongst the dirt and dust and blood on her cheeks.  
"What happened?" Fred asked in a cracked voice.  
"Calm down, Fred," Spike demanded and Fred seemed to obey. She stopped sobbing and stared into his eyes, letting him know he had her full attention. "We found out what was happening to you when we went away. That thing--" "Sarcophagus," Fred informed him in a composed voice, clearly much more in control now.  
"Yes, sarcophagus. It held a demon god by the name of Illyria." Fred's eyes widened.  
"The demon god… consumed you…" Fred whimpered. "W-Wha-What?" "It took over your body." "Did I hurt anyone?" Spike shook his head. "No. It wasn't you." Fred then looked around and saw the destruction. "What happened?" she reiterated.  
"We're not sure what caused this," Spike said as he looked around the horizon. "Certainly not any lackeys like those Moch-things." Spike was talking more to himself at that point.  
"Moch-things?" Fred asked.  
"We'll get to that, Fred. While you were… gone…" Spike then told her all that had happened, stopping before telling her about Wesley's death. He also left out that Wesley had warmed up to Illyria, not certain what effect that would have on her.  
"Who died?" Fred asked after Spike stopped right before they all met together in the alley.  
"Gunn--" Fred looked at him shocked. "--got hurt. So did Angel and myself." "What about Wesley?" Fred queried, knowing the answer.  
Spike sighed. "I'm sorry, pet." Fred began to cry again. This time Spike didn't think he could calm her down.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Lindsey was still perched atop the tallest Venacklondage. He was waiting now. Waiting for the newest addition to the army. The most powerful.  
It had taken a great deal of work to get it into the army. But it was about to be worth it. Once it was no longer tampered by a human shell it would be once again ruthless, angry, and ready to kill.  
Illyria, in her original form, would be arriving soon. In the meantime, however, Lindsey was playing Rumy with a Jarlkarlone. Lindsey was winning, of course.  
Near the end of the game Illyria rose from the ground. It was seamless and soundless. She just formed from the ground really.  
"Hello, beautiful," Lindsey said. He now had the most powerful army ever created at his disposal. "How are you today?"

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Can't wait till the next chapter? Too bad. Here's a summary.  
  
**Summary (at Tariq's request) of the last few chapters: Gwen is added in. She is coming to Los Angeles at Richard's request to help Angel and his team. Before she goes, however, her power leaves her. That power overloads all electronic appliances around and the power from those appliances is then added to Gwen's power. After that she begins to head to Los Angeles. Dawn is injured greatly and dying. Illyria is also injured. Angel is impaled. Xander's arm is lost due to severed muscles and nerves. Willow keeps herself from injury but Kennedy is put into a coma while Willow believes she is dead. Buffy is trapped under her tent. Lindsey's mind is being poisoned by a source unknown and is now in control of all of the Jarlkarlones and Venacklondages on Earth. Drusilla is dead and Connor no longer under Bob's influence. Bob's location is unknown now. Most of the country is deceased. The Mochlackdangodenacks are rapidly decreasing in number Buffy finds Dawn and takes Dawn with her to find Willow and Xander. Illyria is feared dead. Spike, Robin, and Faith are looking for survivors while Angel is unconscious. Willow is fighting back Evil Willow. The Bolinkodagenat's cover is blown. Ashley is awake. Connor is awake and thinks the world has ended. The zombies have not made another appearance yet and Monique's and Gunn's conditions are unknown.  
Oz loses a fight against the Bolinkodagenat, which then goes off to find Willow, the source of the magical sense it feels. Willow destroys part of Kennedy after performing a spell to bring her back from the dead when she is only in a coma. The Bolinkodagenat attacks and is scolded by Lindsey and disappears. Lindsey scolds the Bolinkodagenat more. Illyria comes to. Spike finds Illyria only to find that he has, in fact, found Fred.  
Willow gets Giles over to her and wants to know how to bring back the part of Kennedy destroyed. Buffy, Lorne, and Xander take care of Dawn and Oz. The dead soldiers turn into zombies. Fred is brought up to date on events. The Bolinkodagenat is going to retrieve the Key (Dawn). Lindsey greets Illyria back now that she is no longer in the shell of Fred. The reason for this is not yet known to you people, the readers. Dun dun duuuuunnnnn suspenseful music**  
  
"Eventually, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." - Narrator "Fight Club" 


	18. The Dead Soldiers Rise

**Chapter Eighteen:  
The Dead Soldiers Rise**  
  
Buffy drop kicked the first of the zombies the reach her. She then grabbed its gun and shot it in the head, remembering what Giles had once told her about zombies. If you disable their brain, they die again.  
She then aimed the gun at some of the other zombies, not stopping to think and wonder what had caused the dead bodies to become zombies.  
Lorne wasn't a fighter, but that didn't mean he was completely unable to fight when the time called for it. He grabbed the first zombie to reach him and got its weapon, a shotgun with seven shells. He shot its head off. Blood and brains splattered into the air. Then he displayed his horrible aiming abilities by wasting most of the rest of his bullets hitting nothing or just zombie limbs. When they got closer he was able to aim easier and three of the zombies dropped to the ground, finally at peace.  
They could hear gun fire in the distance. That was good; there were more survivors.  
Lorne was panicking now. His aim was getting worse. Then he was out of bullets and he had to retrieve another gun. A zombie jumped on top of him when he kneeled down to grab the gun from the closest body. It bit him and Lorne knocked it off.  
Buffy spun around and blasted its head off. Dawn and Oz were still unconscious and dying. Lorne and Buffy were their protectors.  
Giles was using a gun--a 9mm pistol--as well while Willow was using magic to kill the zombies running at them. Kennedy stared dumbly in front of her. She was sitting up and didn't seem to hear or see what was going on.  
Lorne was pissing metal with his Uzi. Bullet after useless bullet hit nothing or had no effect. Buffy was shooting a single bullet at a time from her Desert Eagle.  
Her last bullet hit a zombie's neck and that same zombie leapt on top of her. It thrust its head forward its mouth open and blood and drool dripping out. Its nauseating breath was hard to deal with and it was somehow overpowering her. How was it overpowering her? She was the Slayer!  
The zombie's deadly teeth drew ever closer to her face and the zombie seemed to be smiling. It was snarling.  
Buffy got her foot under the zombie and thrust upward. The zombie flew off of her and Buffy grabbed a 9mm pistol and blasted away at a bunch of other zombies charging.  
Lorne was backing up from the crowd. He was running out of bullets quickly and had no bodies within feasible reach. And the bite mark on his shoulder was hurting like hell. Luckily for Lorne he couldn't be affected by the zombie virus, but it still hurt like hell.  
Giles was able to get over to Buffy and Lorne. Willow stayed behind to keep Kennedy safe.  
Giles shot a zombie off of Oz. Oz hadn't been bitten. He then shot another two that had gotten through Buffy and Lorne. He shot another in the distance--not killing it but slowing it down--and was then out of bullets. He grabbed another weapon. His eyesight was getting worse and he knew he was too old for this stuff.  
When the last zombie in the area was killed, Lorne had been bitten once again and Giles had been knocked down. Buffy had a scratch on her cheek from slamming into the ground. That was it. They were lucky. Not as lucky as the group of soldiers seven blocks away, which sustained more than seventy-five percent casualties. A single block away was Alexander Harris, on his way to look for duct tape.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Xander was looking down at a soldier's body. He had seen the soldier the day before. They had chatted for a few minutes before going off and doing whatever they did.  
If Xander hadn't understood how many had died in the explosions, he did now.  
The soldier then opened its eyes. They were glazed and Xander understood they were dead.  
"Oh shit!" Xander shouted and ran away as the zombie sat up. More were getting up all around. Even bodies that had been chopped apart were showing signs of life. It was obscene. The dead coming back to life.  
Xander ran into a standing building and slammed the wooden door behind him. He then ran through the darkness, bumping into tables and chairs and walls on his way. Xander realized that he couldn't run very fast anymore. He only had one arm to pump for speed with. Most of the zombies had two. And the ability to ignore pain on top of that.  
"Okay Xander, buddy," he whispered to himself. "What are ye gonna do, boy?" He then found the stairs. By found I mean stubbed his toe on and then fell on top of. He scrambled back to his feet and began to walk up the stairs cautiously. He hoped no one had left a toy on the stair case.  
Upstairs he decided he would stay, at least for a few minutes. Until the zombies had passed… or broken in. Xander cringed at that thought, not wanting to accept it as a possibility but knowing it was one nonetheless. The prospect of getting devoured by the undead when you couldn't see them was not a very spirit-lifting one.  
Then his working hand found something on a desk positioned against the wall.  
A big, brand-spanking new roll of duct tape.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Spike snapped the spinal cord of a zombie and then decapitated another with his fist. Angel did likewise and so did Faith. Robin and Fred snatched weapons from the dead zombies and began to blast away. Fred wasn't a great aimer and missed a lot, not as much as Lorne, though.  
"What the bloody hell is going on?" Spike shouted.  
"Zombies!" Angel replied.  
"I know that!" Spike retorted as he slammed a zombie's head into the pavement, smashing it like a watermelon. "I mean why are they zombies?" "No clue!" "Great!" Faith leapt into the air and kicked a zombie's head right off its shoulders. Robin shot a string of bullets from his machine gun that tore one in two. Fred managed to kill a couple of them and disable a few others.  
The five began to move. They didn't know where they were going. There were distant gun shots. They weren't the only ones left alive. That was good.  
After about ten minutes of wandering and slaughtering zombies they stumbled upon the medical tent. It was half collapsed. Angel hoped that Gunn had been on the other side of the tent.  
There weren't many zombies around in that area; just three or four. They used that lack of enemies to their advantage and disappeared into the barely standing half of the tent.  
In there was a jumble of hospital beds, gurneys, paper, and dead soldiers who had been in the middle of a coma or something when the explosions had occurred. They had taken a bit to die, apparently, because they weren't zombies yet.  
Angel gave up Gunn for dead, then he saw a black hand from underneath one of the piles of beds and gurneys. Angel grabbed the beds and soldier bodies and began to toss them away like garbage.  
Sooner rather than later an unconscious Gunn was laying on the floor for them all to see. So was the head of the blonde Slayer he had been with at the time of the attack that had landed him in the medical tent in the first place. Angel thought her name was Monique but wasn't entirely certain.  
Spike uncovered the rest of the Slayer with a bit more difficulty than Angel had had uncovering Gunn because the piles to the sides were getting bigger and it was hard to place something.  
That was when Angel noticed just how large the medical tent was… and just how many people were in it. All or most dead by now. They would be zombies in probably a matter of minutes. They seriously needed to be gone by then.  
Angel wondered how they could possibly take all of these zombies at once. Bombs, guns, magick, anything! He couldn't think of a damn thing that was feasible.  
"Let's get these two out of here, quick," he ordered the other four. Fred was looking at her bleeding abdomen, still not certain if this was all just a dream. Spike and Faith were lost in their thoughts. Robin was the first to obey Angel's command. He picked up the Slayer and began to carry her away. That's when a zombie came crashing into the tent, its body on fire like and its eyes glowing like some homicidal, insane jack-o-lantern. It let out a shriek that none of them could believe for a second was human and charged. Angel jumped on top of it and tore its flaming head off and chucked the body and the head out of the tent before it could catch fire. He then saw the crowd sprinting towards the tent. The dead crowd.  
"Son of a bitch," Angel muttered under his breath.  
The other four looked at him. They were wounded and low on ammo and energy. They wouldn't survive the fight. Not even Angel and Spike. Angel had a sudden vision of his head being chewed off by a dozen zombies and shuddered. He had always secretly hoped that it would never be decapitation that killed him. Decapitation scared the hell out of him.  
He turned to the others. He had about twenty seconds or less to make one final speech.  
"Let's give these undead assholes hell." Then Robin and Fred began firing. Angel, Spike, and Faith grabbed whatever was around that was good for stabbing or slicing. Knives and scalpels were lying on the ground and on the over-turned beds and gurneys.  
They began to fight against the horde of zombies, knowing that what waited for them at the end of the fight was death. Because the dead soldiers in the medical tent were opening their eyes and lifting their heads, hungry for human flesh in a much more grotesque way than Hannibal Lecter.  
Zombies at the flap of the tent and zombies inside of the tent. They were sitting ducks that happened to be armed with guns and sharp objects and the knowledge to use them. Yet they were sitting ducks nonetheless.  
Angel was bit twice and Spike four times. They didn't care about being bit because they knew the virus wouldn't take over them. Their blood wasn't pumping and they were already undead.  
Robin's gun ran dry first and he broke a bed post off of one of the hospital beds and began to bash in zombie heads. Fred was managing to keep them at bay, wondering why she wasn't already dead from her wound. Her mortal wound.  
When her gun ran dry Ashley managed to get out from under the beds and gurneys. She wasn't screaming anymore, just struggling. Not knowing yet that she could've flung everything off of her with just a thought.  
And she saw the zombies. All of the zombies getting up and running. The piles of dead zombies. Decapitated or with snapped necks they were dead.  
Without thinking about it she held out her hand without a moment of panic or a moment of fear. She didn't even feel the power drain from her considering so little of it had left her. And the zombies all dropped dead simultaneously. Some cut off mid-moan or mid-groan.  
Then the five turned to look at the Ashley who had just saved their lives without even using any amount of effort. And Spike began to laugh hysterically.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Andrew somehow managed to get the tent material off of him. He had been suffocating, so close to death. He heard distant gunfire. Lots of gunfire. Continuous and loud.  
There were no dead soldiers near Andrew--he would later thank God for small favors--and he had no idea what had happened or what was happening.  
The last thing he remembered was hearing an increasingly loud CD player shouting Weird Al Yankovich's "Amish Paradise", and then orange and red and yellow and heat. A lot of heat. Then suffocation.  
Somehow he had survived almost an hour under that tent without dying. Another thing he would later thank God for.  
He got up with shaky legs and dusted off his black shirt and blue jeans. He then surveyed the surroundings. Just like Angel and Connor, he also thought the Apocalypse had happened.  
He walked down the cracked street and avoided smoldering bits and pieces of cars, CD players, etcetera. The buildings where all crumbled or partially crumbled. He didn't understand how this had all happened within the hour he had been out. Then he remembered the gunfire, which was still loud and clear, and wondered if it was happening instead of already having happened.  
So Andrew walked in the direction of the gunfire, hoping to find Buffy and the others. To have things explained to him.  
Instead he was going to find a massacre.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Gwen was suddenly standing in Los Angeles. Surrounding her was Buffy, Lorne, Giles, Willow, Kennedy, Dawn, and Oz. Dawn and Oz were lying down and bleeding profusely, though. All of them, except for the two unconscious ones, looked at her in bewilderment.  
Gwen held up her right hand and waved "hello." She then looked down and saw that she was naked again, her clothes scorched away by the electricity. She was momentarily reminded of that "Terminator" time machine's rules. Only organic material can go through it. She supposed her new form of transportation was like that.  
She then stole the clothes from a nearby dead body and donned them. She looked odd in camouflage slacks that were four sizes too large and a white T-shirt that was three sizes too large at least.  
"Hello," she greeted in a kind voice. The group remained speechless and continued to stare. Gwen giggled nervously. That was how she met the Scoobies for the first time.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
All over the country the dead were rising. Rodney Remus, Sean Berds, Harry Vega, Kevin Nerg (who--if you remember--had been blown in half), Jack Frierson, and even the president all raised to feed on the living. Along with all of the other dead bodies with their heads remaining. The amount of the undead largely outnumbered the number of the living. Those mentioned earlier having been rescued in the morning from their collapsed building… well, they were killed not ten minutes later.  
Soon over eighty percent of the country was dead. Soon ninety.  
The United States of America was becoming the undead capital of the world.

* * *

Hello, MorbidMan here.  
I have a confession to make: I forgot all about Andrew for a few chapters. I have some good news, too. No, I didn't save 15% on my car insurance by switching to Geico. I got an XBOX! I don't have a game for it yet, but I do have a rented game: "True Crime: Streets of L.A." (kinda ironic considering this fic takes place mostly in Los Angeles). Anyway, back to the Author's Note that's relevant to the story.  
I remembered Andrew because of this idea I got for a "Buffy" fic. It's about Buffy, Dawn, and Andrew having found a permanent place to reside. Somewhere in the U.S., of course. Buffy is out on patrol one night when a vampire, drenched in blood with his vamp-face on, jumps on top of her and pins her down, having caught her by surprise. He then asks her to help him. To help him overcome his vampire addictions and needs.  
And all of those names mentioned in the beginning of the last section were characters I had described having died in the explosions in Chapter Fourteen that hadn't been decapitated or mostly decapitated.  
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you next chapter.  
  
(Warning: the following quote contains rated R content)  
  
"My dad gets angry when I use profanity. Especially when it turns perfectly good sentences into perfectly disastrous sentences. For example:  
  
Example A: Good Try.  
  
Example B: Holy fucking shit you gimpy fuck, what the fuck was that?!  
  
Maybe dad's got a point there." - Matthew Good "At Last There's Nothing Left to Say" (a good book) 


	19. Safe for the Moment

** Chapter Nineteen:**  
**Safe for the Moment**  
  
The sun was rising and the world was tinted blue. If it weren't for the acrid scent of smoke and fire and ash, they might've been able to smell the sweet smell that only morning could deliver. The building wasn't quite so dark anymore. There was no more accidentally bumping into things like chairs and tables and desks. He even thought it might be safe to descend the stairs. So he did. And it was.  
  
Xander looked at the roll of duct tape he had been clutching so tightly his hand was white for the last hour of the night, hoping against hope that the zombies wouldn't burst in to munch on the tasty morsel that he was to them. The part he had been clutching had a hand-shaped impression and was slick with sweat. He assumed the roll was new because he couldn't see a single uneven tear on it.  
  
He had looked out the window upstairs less than five minutes ago. There weren't any zombies outside for the moment, so he had decided to go out. He figured it would be safe to go downstairs because he hadn't heard the splintering crack that would signal the entrance of the zombies.  
  
Opening the door to the outside of the nightmare he had trapped himself in, he listened. He could hear footsteps, but they were slow footsteps. He had watched the zombies and seen that, even when there was no one around to feed on, they ran. He heard a familiar voice. A female voice. Then a male's voice that he didn't remember ever hearing before. Xander was quite glad that there were other survivors. He could band with them and go to the mess hall tent to gather the others.  
  
A few seconds later Xander was headed in the direction of the footsteps and Buffy, Lorne, and Gwen were rounding the corner to come face to face with him. They all jumped and then laughed.  
  
"Xander!" Buffy shouted and embraced him. Xander smiled. "We've been looking for you."  
  
Gwen was looking behind them, keeping watch for more of the zombies she had heard about. She wasn't worried; she knew the first one to show its rotted face would be flash-fried. She knew that because her mind was poised to do the flash-frying.  
  
Xander looked at Gwen and assumed she was another one of the Slayers.  
  
Buffy stepped away from Xander and then introduced him to Gwen. All the while she was keeping a watchful eye. And a tired eye. None of them had slept for the entire, endless night, and the adrenaline rushes were losing their effects. If they didn't get sleep soon then they would collapse on the battlefield. Or they would get mauled by zombies due to poor vision and sluggish actions. Buffy told Xander about how Gwen had appeared and Gwen filled him in with her story.  
  
"Huh," Xander said. "I've heard and seen stranger things, but this still ranks up pretty high on the scale." That's when Xander realized there were just three in the group: the green demon (who Xander had heard about and knew went by the name of Lorne), Buffy, and Gwen. He knew that the others weren't dead, otherwise the group wouldn't be so light-hearted. So he asked where the others were.  
  
"They're back at the cafeteria, err, mess hall tent," the exhausted Buffy replied. For some reason she had just thought she was in high school again. Sunnydale High. The one she had blown up to kill the Mayor, who had turned into an untainted demon during graduation. The feeling passed abruptly. She couldn't believe how long ago that had been. Six years. That was a fourth of her life ago.  
"Okay," Xander said. "I'm gonna go there. Tape the wounds." He held up the roll of duct tape. Buffy nodded.  
"Hurry," she ordered. Dawn hadn't been bleeding as much when she had left, but that wasn't necessarily good. She could be running out of blood to bleed.  
Xander hurried back the way that the trio had come. It was a good ten minute walk and he was worrying that he would be too late the entire time. And he was so tired.  
Willow was hugging Kennedy. Xander was too tired to notice or care that there was something very wrong about Kennedy. He saw Giles inspecting the bandages on Dawn and Oz. He went over to those three.  
"Got duct tape," he said. He was beginning to feel extremely tired. From the look of it, so did Giles. Willow was just overrun with grief. Sleep hadn't crossed her mind in what would seem to her to be millenniums ago.  
Xander went to rip off some tape. Unfortunately it was a two-hand job and he had forgotten he now only had one available. So he handed the roll to Giles. Giles then wordlessly taped over all of the wounds that they couldn't bandage with a strip of cloth. He made sure the tape was on good and tight.  
That's when he realized he had absolutely no idea what to do next.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
They didn't need to worry about the zombies anymore; Ashley took care of any that reared their decomposed heads and charged forth for a bite.  
Angel, Spike, Fred, Robin, Faith, and Ashley were bunched together randomly. Angel was carrying Gunn with balancing help from Faith while Spike carried Monique.  
There weren't very many zombies around anymore. They all wondered silently where they were. There had to be several laying in wait. There weren't very many bodies littering the ground anymore. That was the scariest part of retracing their steps in the direction of the mess hall tent: there were fewer bodies. Now they all knew what had happened to the bodies, but their imaginations still wandered off and caused havoc and chaos in their minds. Fear.  
About thirty minutes away from the mess hall tent Buffy, Lorne, and Gwen appeared.  
They all breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, there was some confusion. Who's where? What's happened to them? Who's alive and who's dead? Why the hell is Gwen here? What do you mean she just appeared?  
Lorne was overjoyed at Fred being around again, but he wasn't as enthusiastic as he would've been had he known what had caused Illyria to leave her body. Well, that's what he thought. The truth is, he would've been scared shitless had he known that Illyria, back in her demon body and back to full power, was less than seven miles away. Along with the greatest army any one person or demon has ever possessed.  
Angel and the others were filled in on Gwen's story. Buffy noticed Ashley and didn't know what question to ask. She remembered Ashley from the incident with Riley. Boy did it hurt her to think of that.  
"What happened to Illyria?" Lorne asked. He had a smile on his face. The others shrugged, but Lorne didn't see the shrugs, so he asked again.  
"We don't know," Angel replied. His voice sounded irritated. Lorne looked at him a little shocked at his irritation.  
"If you don't want me to ask twice then answer the first time," he said. Angel bit his tongue.  
"I think I saw it," Fred stated out of the blue.  
"Huh?" most of them inquired simultaneously. Fred looked around at the rest of them. That's when Lorne, Buffy, and Gwen first noticed her bleeding abdomen.  
"Illyria," Fred answered. Her pronunciation was a little shaky. She looked around at them. They were waiting for her to continue. "It was blue. It had at least five, green eyes. Its arms were long and skinny. It only had two arms placed high on its body, at its neck. It had three legs. Two in the front and one in the back. Like a tripod for a camera.  
  
"It was tall. Really tall. Maybe twenty feet. Maybe even thirty. I saw it the entire time I was… gone, I guess. It's the only thing I saw." She finished her monologue and looked around at the others. Angel then had a bit of deja-vu. He had listened to this sort of stuff before from Cordelia and Doyle. He missed them both quite a lot. She was about to say something when a voice she had never heard asked them something. Fred turned around and stared into the young eyes of a man she had never seen before yet thought looked so familiar.  
  
"We're all dead, aren't we?" this man asked.  
  
"Connor!" Angel breathed in surprise.  
  
"Who's Connor?" Fred asked.  
  
"The world's ended, hasn't it?" this Connor asked.  
  
"This is your son?" Buffy almost shouted in surprise.  
  
"What?" Angel asked her, not knowing how she knew about Connor.  
  
"It's true, isn't it? We're ghosts… or spirits… or something. We're dead." Connor's dirty face had tear tracks that ran through the dirt and dust all the way down his cheeks.  
  
"No," Angel said. "How… We're not dead. How did you know about him?"  
  
"You have a son?" Fred asked. Extremely confused. "I didn't know that!"  
  
"You don't remember?" Angel asked. "The world's not over, Connor. How did you know about him, Buffy?"  
  
"Why should I?" Fred asked.  
  
"Lindsey told me," Buffy replied, staring at Connor.  
  
"You're back!" Lorne shouted.  
  
"I thought it was impossible for vampire's to breed," Robin stated.  
  
"Hey, Connor," Gwen greeted him.  
  
"Let Angel tell you about it," Faith ordered Robin.  
  
"Because Wesley broke the memory spell," Angel told Fred.  
  
"What memory spell?"  
  
"What happened, then?" Connor asked.  
  
"SHUT UP!" Angel shouted and everyone went silent. "One at a time! Alright! We don't know what happened, Connor. Everything just blew up all of a sudden. I put a memory spell on everybody so that Connor could have the life he deserved and Wesley broke it. I assumed you'd remember Connor. I don't know why you don't. The fact that I was able to breed was all part of this destiny to let this peace-making demon into the world! There! It's all straightened out for the moment! Can we get back to business, please?"  
  
_**666**_  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I thought of a new way to separate the chapter and the author's note since my old method doesn't show up on anymore. See the '666' above. You like it? I thought it would be cool to end this chapter on a comedic note. I got a new fic up. It's that "Buffy" one I told you about in my last author's note. Could you all go check that one out? It's "A Strange Vampire". It's much different from this story in that it's not so grand in its scale and won't get a grand scale. I'll update soon… hopefully. Now that school's starting back up I might not have a lot of time to update considering I do most of my writing between the hours of 1 and 6 AM. Obviously I can't do that in the school year. See you next chapter… whenever that'll be.  
  
"My momma always say 'life is like a box of chocolates'; you never know what you're gonna get." - Forrest Gump "Forrest Gump" 


	20. Doing Different Things in Different Plac...

** Chapter Twenty:  
Doing Different Things in Different Places**  
  
Everyone was back at the mess-hall tent. Or, where it used to be. Willow was sleeping with Kennedy in her arms. Giles was dozing off and Xander was also asleep. They were all sitting or laying on the ground, which was coated in a layer of dirt and building debris. Dawn and Oz were still out.  
  
Angel thought of the decapitated bodies they had seen. Dirt and dust had blown over the bodies. It was like they were in a desert and several soldiers were lagging behind and finally dropping.  
That made Angel think of water. How were they gonna get water? Or blood? Animal blood, anyway. Food was an issue as well.  
  
Much of the mess-hall's machinery was left behind in bits and pieces, but you could probably still find a few bits of food amongst the destruction. They'd have to get water from the sewer systems somehow. He remembered Buffy mentioning the water pouring out into the crater that Ashley had been found in. They'd have to boil it to get rid of all the shit and piss germs--if there were any--but it was still water. And it was necessary. They weren't in any shape to start doing any of that yet, however. They'd need rest before they set off to accomplish anything.  
  
Giles stood up wearily to greet them. He met Fred and saw an unconscious Monique. He was quite interested in Fred's background for the last few months. He was interested in Illyria is another way to put it. He recognized Monique as the Slayer attacked by the short demon. No Gunn was awake to tell them its name: Zaerintoleran.  
  
Giles was then told to get some rest. Buffy told Angel about the rest of what happened, but she was puzzled about Kennedy's situation and couldn't give him much information on that.  
It was in the midst of this conversation that Dawn mumbled something inarticulately. Buffy spun around immediately and ran to Dawn. When she reached the bleeding body Dawn tried to sit up. She tried and failed. Tried and failed. Buffy helped her out.  
  
"What happened?" Dawn almost whispered, her voice slurred and her words elongated and hard to understand.  
  
"You're awake!" Buffy cried. "Thank God!" Buffy then hugged Dawn fiercely.  
  
Dawn spotted Fred and was immediately confused in her extremely weary state. She wondered why Illyria wasn't blue anymore. And she also had no idea who the woman soldier was. Of course, both of those things were miniscule when compared to her overwhelming confusion at why everyone was beat up and why all the buildings were skeletons or collapsed. She could smell fire.  
  
She also wondered why there were no bodies.  
  
Later…  
  
Spike had been getting a familiar feeling. It had occurred before he had seen Illyria's death. He had walked away from the base to get his mind to be able to focus on the feeling in fact. He wondered why it hadn't come before he had seen Lorne's death.  
  
"The Death of Your Comrades Act Three coming right up," he whispered to himself. He wandered away from the others claiming that he would go look for survivors. He wanted no one, especially Buffy, to see him while he was seeing. That's what he called it now, seeing.  
When he got out of view and ear shot of the others he stayed stationary. And he waited.  
  
It was Buffy this time.  
  
All he had was a jumble of images and words.  
  
A blue tentacle.  
  
Help.  
  
Buffy staring in horror.  
  
Help!  
  
Dawn and Fred.  
  
HELP!  
  
A Mochlackdangodenack.  
  
HELP!  
  
A big, blue demon that Buffy called Ill--Illyria!  
  
PLEASE HELP!  
  
And Lindsey with a maniac's grin.  
  
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEONE HELP HER!  
  
And then he was in a tall chamber. Fire ran up the gigantic walls on both sides of a skinny  
walkway he was standing on. The walls stretched up to a point in the sky that he couldn't see beyond, and they stretched further even beyond the end of the walkway, which ended in a large circle with a throne that something bony and relatively small was sitting on. Spike looked below. There was an ocean of fire not quite so far down. The walkway itself was suspended in mid air. Spike was standing on the furthest portion away from the thing sitting on the throne.  
  
He took a precautious step forward towards the throne. Each step after that became more and  
more natural. The walkway's surface was soft like a pillow full of Styrofoam, but much more stable to walk on.  
  
Eventually he reached the throne. The chamber seemed to be temperature less. Of course, Spike had no idea what it felt like to be temperature less so he didn't know that. Not to mention his mind was racing and confused. What's happening? Is this cold? Hot? Shouldn't I know? I just saw Buffy die. Please don't let it happen. Why am I here?  
  
Sitting in the throne was an extremely old-looking man with a tail. The man's skin was stretched so tightly over his body that he looked like a skeleton. His eyes were glazed and unfocused. His lips were cracked with dryness along with his tongue. His teeth were yellow to an absurd point and his hair was stringy and fell down to his eyebrows. He had no beard and no mustache.  
  
"Oh Spike," the man spoke in a healthy, commanding, reprimanding voice that was extremely unexpected from such a man. Spike jumped. He had expected his birth name to be used, not  
'Spike'. "I figured it was time for you to meet me."  
  
"Guy giving me the moving pictures in my head," Spike stated. "Thanks for the head-splitting head aches you wanker."  
  
"Would you prefer to have Lorne dead… along with Buffy?"  
  
"Buffy's dead?" Spike asked. "How long have I been here?!"  
  
"No she's not, calm down," the man demanded. "I merely suggested that if you had not been submitted to the head-splitting head aches that I have given you three times now, Buffy and Lorne would most certainly be dead."  
  
Spike calmed down. "Who are you anyway?"  
  
The man smiled. "I am the Shape Shifting Magi of Old," he said with pride and a crooked smile.  
Spike stood there silently for almost an entire minute before bursting out into laughter. Between fits he gasped out the following.  
  
"Why not just call yourself… Gandalf the White! I've heard… some lame names before… but that takes the prize!"  
  
The Magi glared at him. "I'll forgive you for that spit in the face." Spike tried for the next several minutes to get himself under control. Eventually he did.  
  
"I have a question," Spike stated. "Why are you helping me? Us?"  
  
The Magi smiled. "That's what I summoned you to tell you."  
  
"You summoned me to tell me why you were helping me?" Spike asked. "Why?"  
  
"I've been alive all of my life. That life consists of over five billion years. I was around long before the universe was even created. I'm bored. I have been bored for so, so, so long. Even before your first ancestor was created I was bored of being bored, even. The only thing that helps pull me out of that unending boredom is company. I brought you here for company."  
  
"Why are you helping us?"  
  
"Because I die when the Final Apocalypse is averted. If it is, that is. When you win this war, I will pass on. I will no longer be bored. And… I will feel." The Magi held his hand which was covered in skin that resembled a paper bag. "No longer will I sit here, engulfed in flames that I cannot feel. No longer will I sit on the most comfortable chair in any universe or dimension and not appreciate. It's so odd to see fire and not feel heat. That's what fire is, is heat. When you win this war, I will be burned alive, and I will feel it. This is why I am helping you."  
  
"For your own selfish reasons?"  
  
"Precisely."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"You're welcome. Well, you better get going, Spike. Got several birds to kill." And then Spike was back in Los Angeles. It was cold and the sun was getting up high in the sky. Not much time had passed since he had seen Buffy's death. He rushed off to keep a close eye on Buffy. His love.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Five hours later Connor had been filled in on everything that they had known. He had been relieved to find out that the world was still in existence, but he was still… odd. Like he was in a trance. But he was already much better than when he had first shown up. Soon they would need to go for food and water.  
  
The first of the surviving soldiers to reach the base had been bitten several times all over his body. Ten minutes later he was grabbing at Lorne with his mouth agape and growling. So they had blown his brains out the back of his head through a hole the size of maybe a wallet. After that they had better luck with the survivors.  
  
Before the end of the day there were five survivors who hadn't been bitten. There were a couple who were severely injured, but other than that it was good.  
  
By the next morning there were nine healthy survivors and two ex-survivors. Basically, two had arrived and then died.  
  
Their names were, in the order that they arrived, Jack Pinciotti, Amber Irvin, Edward Dealan, Adam Reeze, Adam Bezz, Jared Howell, Jack Creeze, Victor Chase, and Vernon Egan. The two dead were Paul Pool and Edward Eeze.  
  
Willow was distraught over Kennedy still and couldn't do healing spells or anything on the injured. Dawn was too weak to do much, Oz was unconscious, and some of the new arrivals had wounds that just wouldn't stop bleeding. Xander was scouting with Buffy and Spike for medical supplies. Spike had insisted on going with the two. Angel had seen Spike's eyes on Buffy, but he hadn't said anything. Buffy had exited his life long ago. Best not to fall back into old habits. He had bit his tongue so hard. Other things--more important things--required attention.  
  
Such as the necessity of water.  
  
Angel gathered a team that included himself, Giles, Jared Howell, Amber Irvin, and Edward Dealan to go get water. That left six, including Willow, Gwen, and Ashley, to take care of the six injured and catatonic and not-all-there people. They would've taken Ashley, but she said she might be able to heal some of the wounds with her mind. Just like she had killed the zombies with her mind. Hopefully Spike, Buffy, and Xander wouldn't be gone very long.  
  
Jared was in his thirties probably and was pale. His face was set and hard, a professional's face. One used to the death of people. Amber was very young. She was a Slayer and was now very pale. She had an innocent face… or, rather, the face of one whose innocence was just demolished in one foul swoop. Edward had the somewhat young face of a joker who hasn't yet fully matured in his mind. He wasn't cracking any jokes now.  
  
The five of them traveled silently through the city, guns in hand and trained on dark areas. Other than a few confused and lost Mochlackdangodenacks they didn't have to kill anything before they reached the crater.  
  
At the crater there would be sewer water to gather, boil, and drink. They each had a bucket dangling from their wrists. They were easy to transport empty, but they'd be much harder full. Not to mention they'd spill if they had to run.  
  
Immediately Amber and Jared turned to run. Giles and Angel stopped them because there was no threat. The thousands of zombies filling the crater and the outside were standing quite still and staring into the sky wordlessly. The five hadn't been noticed yet, but they didn't want to run and attract them with their footsteps. They'd have to carefully walk away.  
  
They began to walk away backwards at a brisk pace when they heard a humming. It was a very, very silent humming. Maybe the zombies, in their decomposed forms, were incapable of making louder humming noises. Or maybe it wasn't coming from the zombies.  
  
Suddenly white beams shot violently out of each of the zombies standing in or around the crater and into a point at eye-level with Angel and his group. Then the white beams disappeared.  
  
Giles had a very bad feeling about what was about to happen.  
  
The white beams shot right back to each of the zombies twice as violently as they had been shot out. Each beam went right into a mouth and down a throat.  
  
Have you ever heard a dead body gag and puke? Of course you haven't, but it doesn't sound pleasant in the least.  
  
Each zombie gagged and dropped to its knees. They kept gagging. One by one they eventually puked something out. This something then flowed like water down to the center of the crater.  
  
When the zombies had all puked out this watery substance there was something standing there in the middle of the gigantic crater.  
  
It was made of pure white flesh that smelled decomposed and stood twelve feet tall. It had two three foot, white horns sprouting out of its forehead. It opened its eyes and they were entirely blue. It had no nose. Its mouth was small. It was closed at the moment, but when it was open it was a small 'o'.  
  
It had two arms, each five feet long. It had clubs for hands. These clubs were perfectly rounded.  
  
The demon had not one single jagged shape on it.  
  
It had two legs. These were furry legs that ended in talons. Everything was pure white. Had it not been for the black smoke rising in the distance and the dark color of the zombies it would be invisible except for its light, blue eyes. The same eyes that had just spotted the gang of intruders.  
  
It thrust one club in the direction of the gang and then ran in two directions. Is that possible? For the Zombie Commander it was. It split apart and charged around the zombies toward the gang.  
  
Zombies ran after it, shrieking.  
  
If there was ever a time for running, that was it.  
  
It was as though five people with guns that contained bullets the size of humans fired those same bullets simultaneously. Amber was a Slayer, so she could run faster due to bigger leg muscles. Jared, however, was not so lucky to have youth and supernatural strength or a starting point further away from the zombies like Giles did.  
  
When the Zombie Commander's two halves got on either side of Jared they closed on him. His head was squashed like a watermelon hit with a sledgehammer the size of Texas, and the Zombie Commander kept running with an army of zombies following in its wake.  
Angel, being the only one with a photographic memory, was the only one to remember how they had escaped the army and the Z.C. They had all leapt over the burned skeleton of a family van and ducked into a building unnoticed because of the few seconds that they had been concealed by the van from the zombies.  
  
They had then run through the building to the other side and entered a parking garage that had somehow survived the many explosions of parked cars. Through the maze of skeletal cars they split up. Amber had read once that a hunter confronted with many different prey usually never went after one. Hopefully the scents going in different directions would confuse them and stop them in their tracks. After that they had regrouped and run blindly until they came across the medical tent. Angel thought of checking for survivors because they weren't being followed anymore, then remembered the death Ashley had brought. It was doubtful there would be survivors.  
  
So they ran on back to the mess hall tent site with no water and no food. They were as good as dead.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Lindsey sensed another great power nearing. His army grew ever larger.  
  
Lindsey looked up from his card game with Illyria, who had been eager to go kill but had been stopped by Lindsey. There was Bob. He was looking at them with a maniacal smile on his extremely thin face.  
  
"I want to join," he said simply. Lindsey smiled, too.  
  
"You're in, Bob."  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Zombies from Wisconsin, from Maine, from New York, from Mississippi, from insert state name here, were rushing to the crater in Los Angeles. It was the Birth Crater to them. The Birth Crater from which they would give birth to a Zombie Commander. To many Zombie Commanders. And then to a Zombie Emperor.  
  
They were flowing into Los Angeles like water. Thousands more were gathering around the Birth Crater before nightfall. Thousands more at midnight.  
  
Four Zombie Commanders were on Earth by morning. They needed six more so that the ten Z.C.s could give birth to the Zombie Emperor. So they kept coming.  
  
When Spike, Buffy, and Xander returned with some medical supplies they were filled in about the white demon--none of them knew it was a Zombie Commander and none of them knew the true power it held within it to create the Zombie Emperor. So they went about in their blissful innocence, for it was blissful innocence compared to what they didn't know and how much suffering it would bring.  
  
_**666**_  
  
Hey, Morbidman here. Told you I'd keep updating. I hope you liked this and please review. I'm trying to update quicker now, but I'm without a computer for five entire days of the week, so I'm trying to work with the two I have: Friday and Saturday. Sometimes a portion of Sunday.  
Anyway, within the next five or six chapter the Final Battles will begin. I've got quite explosive things planned for them and there will be many of them. The story's far from over. It's only half over. Mark my words. See you next chapter.  
  
"I don't know why I came here tonight,  
I got the feeling something ain't right,  
I'm so scared I fall off my chair,  
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stair,  
Clowns to the left of me,  
Jokers to the right,  
Here I am,  
Stuck in the middle with you." - Stealer's Wheel "Stuck in the Middle With You" (an awesome '70s song) 


	21. Vinieria

** Chapter Twenty-One:**  
**Vinieria**  
  
"Hello, Zaerintoleran," the Australian bartender greeted the small demon standing before him. "And here I thought you were in the Shitty States of America evoking the Apocalypse and all that happy-crappy shit." The bartender hadn't been born in Australia; he had moved there from--where else?--the United States of America. Zaerintoleran and Vernon, the bartender's name, had been friends for a long time. For twenty of Vernon's thirty years. This is because ten year old Vernon was the only human being who didn't scream and run away from Zaerintoleran. Now, granted, Z. didn't want attention from humans, but this lack of fear struck him as very interesting. So he socialized with the kid.  
  
"Nope," Z. replied. "I'm not in the U.S. of A. evoking the Apocalypse and all that happy-crappy shit. See, I'm in Australia evoking the Apocalypse and all that happy-crappy shit."  
  
Vernon nodded. His bald head reflected the sunlight brightly. They were sitting on a bench on the southern tip of the continent overlooking the vast ocean. "Here to collect something?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
"What?" Vernon asked. He was quite intrigued and smiling just at the corners of his mouth.  
  
"Huh?" Zaerintoleran had been zoning out as he stared out at the ocean.  
  
"What are you here in Australia to collect?" Vernon reiterated slowly.  
  
"A Slayer."  
  
"Mm-hmm… and that would be?"  
  
"Teenage girl appointed the job of dusting vampires for her usually short life. Every time one dies another is put in her place. Follow me?"  
  
"Yes." A couple of passing kids holding variously colored balloons pointed at the two. Their parents informed them that it was just a short guy in a ridiculous costume.  
  
"That used to be how it was done, anyway. This is the confusing part so be prepared. This one Slayer, Buffy Summers, died. But the thing is that she was brought back to life. However, another Slayer was born nonetheless. I don't remember her name, but there were then two Slayers instead of one. That new Slayer died and another Slayer--I can remember her name easily because it's a name I haven't heard much before--Faith was appointed. The story with Faith is irrelevant because it doesn't help me explain everything. Anyway, a bunch of potential Slayers were taken to a place called Sunnydale. Sunnydale was where Buffy Summers lived. There they practiced and trained for a long while in order to battle and defeat the First. You know what the First is, right?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"So you have a Slayer and a dozen potential Slayers up against the First with a couple of other people. One a witch, one an ex-demon--"  
  
"How do you become an ex-demon?" Vernon interrupted.  
  
"Why do you think I should know?"  
  
"Because you're a demon."  
  
"…Good point. That doesn't I know… I mean that doesn't mean I know. Anyway… witch and ex-demon, yeah. Then you got a wimpy kid named Andrew. I think he's dead now. You hear about what happened in the US?"  
  
"It's all over the place."  
  
"He probably died in that. Then you've got some other miscellaneous guys and gals. Anyway, they found this axe that they could use to give all of the potential Slayers the power of the Slayer. So, of course, they cast the spell. Now there's hundreds of Slayers running around all over the damn place decreasing the decreasing amount of vampires. Now I've come here to get this bitch who hadn't been collected when all the Slayers were taken to L.A. because she wasn't easily accessible all the way over here."  
  
"Why are you collecting her?"  
  
"I'm killing her."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Big man don't say."  
  
"Whose the big man?"  
  
"Lindsey McDonald."  
  
"Like McDonald's?" Vernon asked with a laugh.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"So you're obeying some guy with clown make-up on his face 24/7?"  
  
"No. He doesn't where make-up and no he's not just 'some guy'. Some greater power is working through him."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"I don't know. Someone."  
  
"Why'd you visit me?"  
  
"Cause when the bombs drop--figuratively speaking--you and all of humanity are gonna be vaporized. This is the last chance I'm gonna get to talk to you."  
  
"I'm touched," Vernon stated sarcastically. There was a short moment of silence in which they heard the seagulls crying, the waves splashing against the shore, car horns, and children and adults. The world outside of the U.S. was continuing as normal while those left alive in the doomed country suffered. "When are the bombs gonna drop?" Vernon asked. He hadn't been living a great life to say the least, so he didn't give a shit about the world ending. He had a lot of money, considering he moved all the way across the ocean, but money doesn't mean happiness. Just like the Shape-Shifting Magi of Old, he was bored. Except he was bored of wealth, not of being alone in the same chamber for millenniums upon millenniums.  
  
"Within a week."  
  
"Bring it on." The two old friends then shared an uncomfortable moment of silence. It was their last. It seemed to go on forever when it was just half of a minute. And then Zaerintoleran decided he had better get to killing the Slayer, lest he incur the wrath of Lindsey.  
  
"See you in Hell," Vernon said.  
  
"See ya." And the small demon left the bench that overlooked the ocean. Vernon began to live everyday like it was his last. He called up everyone in his family and told them he loved them. He hadn't spoken to any of them in five years. Then he got a girlfriend, Alexus Shaun. And he waited for death as he tried to make the last week of his life the best.  
  
It was ten at night when Claire Jameson returned to her parents' house. She was sixteen and it was the weekend. She had just gotten stoned at a party and hadn't expected to see her mother and father dead in the living room with their guts duct taped to the walls and ceiling to hang around like Christmas lights.  
  
She then saw Zaerintoleran at the couch. He held out his hand and a sword materialized there again. That same sword slashed through Claire's cuts moments later. Her spinal cord was left undamaged, but the pretty girl died anyway. Her last thought--which she didn't understand--was, "with Lucifer I wanted to rule."  
  
Zaerintoleran got onto a boat and threatened the owner with his sword. An hour after Claire was dead her body was being transported across the ocean for the grotesque purpose that the power controlling Lindsey had in mind.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Illyria formed a tentacle and wrapped it around Bob tightly. There was a tingling sensation for Bob and then the tentacle unwrapped. If a human were to get the message Illryia put into Lindsey's head, they would've died in immense pain as their brain imploded.  
  
"The task you want to appoint this one is almost an insult to him," was the message.  
  
"Insult or no I'm still giving it to him," Lindsey stated. "I got a job for ya Robert."  
  
"What's that?" Bob asked.  
  
"I want you to collect all the computer chips, damaged or no, that you can find in L.A. At least three intact memory chips. I also want you to collect all the wiring, damaged or no, that you can find. I want at least seven miles worth of it. Eight would be swell and nine would be perfect. Seven is the minimum. Got that?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Then I want you to collect twenty pounds of sheet metal. Scratch that. Make it thirty."  
  
"Okay." Bob was wondering why such a magical entity would need things like that, but said magical entity wanted it so said magical entity would get it.  
  
He set out. Household computers were everywhere in ruins. Yes he could find intact memory chips, but it'd take him a while to collect three of them. He collected a hundred fragments before he got one intact in the thirtieth intact apartment he checked out.  
  
The second one he found that was intact was about sixty or seventy apartments after that. He had at least two thousand fragments in the backpack he was carrying with him, which he enlarged and lightened continuously with his mind. Tiny and large. Extremely tiny mostly.  
  
He was two-thirds of the way there. Unfortunately that third was very hard to find. He stopped collecting fragments and just kept searching for that memory chip. Hundreds of apartments zipped by in a flash, literally, before he actually found it.  
  
He then returned with the chips. He gave them to Lindsey and then got another pack for the wiring. He didn't ask questions.  
  
Tearing wires out of walls and ceilings and demolished appliances took only a few minutes. He got nine miles in a matter of an hour and began to connect the wires so that they could transport energy and information. He then returned to Lindsey.  
  
Now he needed to find sheet metal.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Kennedy was staring into space still. She was lying on the ground where Willow had left her. Ashley had begun to heal the wounded when Willow had realized just what was going on around her.  
  
Robin was the first to be healed by Willow. Willow then healed Dawn. Robin felt phantom pain in his forehead where he had been cut. Dawn couldn't move well and felt light-headed from her loss of blood, but she wasn't bleeding anymore. She had trouble talking.  
  
Fred was watching this spectacle of healing, not understanding why she wasn't lying on her back unconscious from the hole in her stomach. It made no sense.  
  
None of those healed were perfect afterward, and no one believed they would ever be perfect again. Especially Oz, who remained more than half dead even after his bleeding had been stopped. Two living Slayers, both only with minor injuries, had arrived an hour or so after Angel and his crew had left.  
  
Sally Markinson with her short, brunette hair and cheeks that had not yet lost all of their baby fat had been the first. She was the youngest of the group at fourteen. They had all been confused as to why a fourteen year-old had been recruited. The world was a strange place and they needed all the Slayers they could get is all that any of them could come up with. Sally looked jaded and angry and sad. She had never left the country that she lived in, which meant that her entire family was most likely dead and running around, wanting to feed on living tissue.  
  
Megan Enders was the second. She was in her late teens and had a scar that started on her forehead and went diagonally across her face to her earlobe. This was a fresh scar, but not very recent. Megan was from Canada and feared her family dead like Sally did, not knowing that only the portions of countries bordering the U.S. had been affected or that it was an incident that hadn't wiped out most of the world.  
  
Faith was out hunting some wounded Mochlackdangodenacks that had wandered into the group accidentally in search of their pack.  
  
It was when Ashley was healing the last of the wounded that Angel, Giles, Amber, and Edward returned. The three humans looked winded and Angel looked very, very worried. He went up to Ashley and asked if Buffy and the others were back.  
  
Coincidentally Spike, Xander, and Buffy arrived directly after that question was asked as if on cue.  
  
He then told them what had happened and requested their help in getting a meeting set up. They needed food and water. The water problem had been taken care of; Buffy and Spike had stumbled upon a large puddle--almost a pond--of sewer water. They had gone back and gotten buckets. Xander had gone for a bucket, but then he had realized he couldn't easily fill it with only one arm, and he wouldn't have an arm to transfer the bucket to if his one arm got tired.  
The three hadn't found any medical supplies, but that wasn't necessary anymore. Not to mention water was more important at the moment.  
  
The plastic buckets had been found lying on the ground at the base. They had been dropped off by Richard, but none of them knew that. The buckets were covered in dirt and dust and soot, and the water was brown from it, but some boiling should take care of all of the harmful substances in it.  
  
Before Angel told the others what had transpired, Faith returned. Silver blood was dripping down her arms, hands, and the metal pole she had gotten from God knows where. She looked wound up.  
  
The meeting then began.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Andrew couldn't believe what he had seen in the last several hours. Decapitated dead bodies, collapsed buildings, people running around with human flesh hanging from their teeth and screeching, and now this.  
  
Andrew had come to the conclusion that there were zombies all around, but this white thing that had just been born right before his eyes he couldn't figure out. The zombies had gone through this odd ritual. At the end of the ritual there had been a big, white demon standing in the middle of the crater the zombies filled. The huge crater that had been created unbeknownst to him by Ashley two days ago.  
  
As he stared in disbelief and horror two more of those white demons came into view and walked through the crowd of zombies to the center to apparently greet the newly born one. In the distance Andrew could see zombies pouring into the city like water. He had come up onto the rooftop he was on so he could try and see any survivors. What he had seen instead was this gathering of zombies.  
  
The crater emptied of zombies as those that had been in it ran out of it and into the jungle of debris and buildings. More filtered into the crater as the three white demons left. Another one was about to be born.  
  
Andrew knew now that he needed to find the others so he could warn them about these things.  
  
Otherwise he feared they would die at the hands of these strange things.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Gunn shot up into a sitting position screaming. By doing so he interrupted the meeting that was just getting rolling. He was screaming words that no one, not even Gunn himself, knew what they were.  
  
Fred ran right to him as did Angel and Faith.  
  
"Vinieria!" Gunn screamed. "I see you! I see you! YOU GODDAMNED BITCH!"  
  
"Gunn!" Fred shouted at him. Gunn was looking at her, but he still looked lost. "What's Vinieria?" Gunn began to calm down and he began to lose that lost look in his eyes.  
  
"Woman in my dreams with metal skin," he replied almost nonchalantly. He then was grounded completely. "…Fred? Fred is that you?"  
_**  
666**_  
  
Hello, MorbidMan here. Starting to bring things together now in this story. Next chapter will have more things explained.  
  
Thanks to all of my reviewers. This fic is, in the Microsoft Words file its all saved on, 196 pages long. This is the longest thing I have ever written, and probably the most liked amongst my fics on and my stories on  
  
I'll see you all next chapter, which should be in next week.  
  
"I don't want to ruin it by making it a Hollywood thing. I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases or characters overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end." - Charlie Kaufman "Adaptation" 


	22. Some Things Happen

** Chapter Twenty-Two:**  
**Some Things Happen**  
  
Gunn was sitting on the ground. His throat was parched so he asked for a sip of the limited water supply. After that he asked how long he had been out.  
  
"Four days maybe five," Angel replied.  
  
"A hundred twenty-five hours," Gunn whispered.  
  
"No, maybe a hundred and twelve hours since it's pretty far from being night now," Fred stated.  
  
"You don't know what happened to Illyria?" Gunn asked for the second time.  
  
"No." Angel glanced at Fred after saying this.  
  
"Or why she's not dead?"  
  
"No."  
  
"That's… that… I'm very confused." There was a long silence that followed.  
  
"So, who is Vin-whatever?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Vinieria," Angel corrected her.  
  
"I repeat, huh?"  
  
"Saw that coming a mile away," Angel sighed. "You were screaming that you saw a 'goddamned bitch' named Vinieria with metal skin and now you don't know about her. Sounds like something out of a B-movie or a bad story." Another moment of silence followed.  
  
"And Connor's back?" Gunn continued.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Have you heard from the Senior Partners yet?"  
  
Angel hesitated. "No we haven't, actually."  
  
"Nothing since the weak-ass army however long ago?"  
  
"No…" Angel looked like he was thinking a lot.  
  
"What do you think they're waiting for?"  
  
"I don't know. Maybe they're not waiting."  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Dawn was surveying herself in private. The glass shards had cut her good in so many places. The wounds had been healed so efficiently that only she could see where they had been and even that was probably her imagination. They were like phantom wounds. They itched and they hurt. She thought of one of the most overused similes she had read in books: a man feeling an itch on an amputated arm. A phantom arm. She wondered why it was so overused. Probably because it was so fantastic.  
  
Well, before when it had been said that they were all healed so efficiently that there were no scars was a lie. There was a deep cut on her left breast that could be easily seen. She feared men would feel revulsion upon seeing that scar. She realized that was just paranoia, but that realization didn't obliterate the paranoia.  
  
What did was the sudden appearance of the Bolinkodagenat in front of her. She didn't have time to scream. She was grabbed and disappeared into thin air along with the insect-like demon. No one was around to witness their disappearance.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
"Giles!" Spike shouted upon finally spotting the old, exhausted Watcher who couldn't believe he had been able to outrun that white demon. Giles shot Spike a distrustful look and waited for the vampire to catch up with him.  
  
"What is it, Spike?" Giles asked impatiently and tiredly. He fought off a yawn.  
  
"I have to talk to you," Spike stated. The only people around were well into their own conversations with others.  
  
"About?" Giles fought off another yawn. He was still worked up from the run and trying to keep his breathing under control. The fact that he wasn't getting as much as he should be was leading to his continuous need to yawn. He was worried, wondering why he was still so worked up. The sun was rising and it had been hours since the run. He hoped he was winded from other activities like carrying the buckets of water to the recently healed wounded. Maybe that had just prolonged his extremely exhausted state.  
  
"Have you ever heard of the Shape-Shifting Magi of Old?" Spike tried as hard as he could to keep a straight face.  
  
Giles thought for a moment and then started laughing. As he did so he yawned. "No and it sounds like a name someone pulled straight out of their ass."  
  
"Well," Spike chuckled and then got it under control. "Well, he's been giving me these visions."  
  
"Visions?" Giles queried, suddenly intrigued.  
  
"Of people dying."  
  
"Who've you seen the deaths of?"  
  
"Lorne, Illyria, and Buffy." "Have you prevented any of them?"  
  
"Lorne's."  
  
"What about Buffy's?"  
  
"I haven't seen her in a dangerous situation yet."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"I don't know what you mean."  
  
"Haven't seen her in a dangerous situation? You're as blind as you are dumb."  
  
Spike had to think a few seconds to get that. "No, I mean like that… thing I saw. The situation I saw her die in." He then explained to Giles what he had seen. He had seen Illyria kill Buffy as Lindsey watched and laughed.  
  
Spike's first question wasn't why Lindsey was standing idly by and laughing; he knew Lindsey was evil. His first question was why Illyria had turned on them and how, since he hadn't prevented her death, she was still alive.  
  
"For your first question, it's probably because she's no longer anchored to humanity through a human body and her mind is free to be as bad as it wants. For your second, I don't know. Maybe someone wanted her back to her original form so they sucked her out of her human body, Fred, and then resurrected her."  
  
"What bloke could possibly have the power to do that?"  
  
"Satan maybe. There are so many demons out there with the power to do so. Even a couple humans. The Senior Partners could've done it."  
  
"Satan? He exists?"  
  
"Possibly. His existence is just as plausible as God's."  
  
"Which, to me means not likely."  
  
"To me it is."  
  
"You saw my death?" Buffy asked, letting her eavesdropping presence be known. She didn't know why she had waited till then to say anything.  
  
"Plaything! Err… uh… I mean Buffy!"  
  
"I'm just gonna pretend I didn't just hear that," Giles whispered.  
  
There was an uncomfortable silence that followed that.  
  
"I'm gonna go now," Giles stated and left, not wanting to be around those two and continue to be barraged by bad thoughts.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
There weren't zombies in the crater anymore. All the zombies were running around the streets. Seeing all of those zombies Andrew was certain that the others were dead. Devoured by these unholy dead things. But the crater wasn't full of zombies, but it was full.  
  
Those white demons Andrew had decided to call Balrogs after the "Lord of the Rings" creature made of fire and shadow. Unknown to him they were called Zombie Commanders as has been stated before.  
  
There were at least ten of them in the crater. He had witnessed the births of most of them. He had seen so many zombies in the last ten hours that their novelty had worn out and he was bored. Scared of them, but bored of them. These Zombie Commanders were losing their interest as well.  
  
What they did was different from what the zombies did. There were five of the Z.C.s in front and five in back. The five in the back raised their arms. Their arms turned into whips. Spiked whips.  
They then began to whip the Z.C.s in front of them. There was no sound but the cracking of the whips. Had those been humans there would've been screams, but the Z.C.s felt no pain. They sensed damage, but they felt no pain.  
  
Clear fluid flowed from the wounds. It was like blood. Clear blood. The blood then ran down to the legs of the five Z.C.s. They then walked forward to the exact center of the crater. A pond was formed of their blood. The pond was a mixture of sewage water and their blood, actually.  
  
The sewage water was not wished for, but it wouldn't hinder the birth of the Zombie Emperor.  
The blood and sewage water then began to take a solid form. It molded itself into a familiar shape and then ceased to be clear liquid.  
  
It was a human. That's it. If Angel had been there he would've stared in awe and then reacted with anger and rage.  
  
The man standing in the center of the crater was a confused and bewildered Allen Francis Doyle.  
  
_**666**_  
  
Once again I was supposed to have a longer chapter and once again I had time restrictions. It would've twice this length were it not 11:30 at night on Sunday.  
  
So, yeah. I hope you liked this chapter. Before I began this story I was gonna make it Cordelia, but everyone still remembers her so it wouldn't be such a great, big shock. I don't think this was either, but it was a bigger one than it would've been with Cordelia. Plus putting Cordelia in this story seems so anticlimactic considering she's gone through so much hell with being dead, being in a coma, being possessed for a year, being a Higher Being for a year, being half demon for several more, having the visions, etc. Plus I miss Doyle's character and don't think it was done justice in the show.  
  
So this is the end of my weekly update. See you next week.  
  
"Clementine: This is it, Joel. It's gonna be gone soon.  
Joel: I know.  
Clementine: What do we do?  
Joel: Enjoy it." - conversation in Joel's last memory to be erased "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (a movie about a man having his most recent relationship erased from his mind by Lacuna, Inc., but deciding half-way through that he doesn't want the procedure done after all, which sucks because there's no way he can stop it. Stars Kirsten Dunst, Jim Carrey, Elijah Wood, and Mark Ruffalo) 


	23. The Poison of Lindsey Spreads

** Chapter Twenty-Three:**  
**The Poison of Lindsey Spreads**  
  
If she hadn't panicked. If only she had not panicked. Things would've been different. Things wouldn't be like they were with Tara three years beforehand. Kennedy wouldn't be coming in and out of reality. Kennedy would still have a soul.  
  
Willow was looking at Kennedy on the ground. She had gone off with Kennedy to a secluded area. That way she could be alone with her unbearable fiasco. Kennedy was staring into space with glazed eyes. No longer could she even speak. Please God let her speak again. Willow would kill a million people to give Kennedy that ability again.  
  
Willow wondered where Kennedy's soul was now that Willow had stolen it from her. That was the worst of it, knowing she had been the cause of it all. The cause of Kennedy's extreme amount of suffering.  
  
"Come back," Willow squeaked. Tears were flowing down her dirt-stained cheeks now, leaving shining paths behind them. "I'll do anything. Just come back." That was when Lindsey appeared in front of her. He was just there. Not there one moment and then there the next. No noisy or dramatic fanfare. Willow jumped backwards and fell on her back in the dirt. Wind was blowing loudly over the crumbling and crumbled buildings alike.  
  
Willow got to a sitting position quickly and looked at Lindsey. She had seen him before, but never like this. The whites of his eyes were now yellow and his pupils pure white. He had no eyebrows and his hair was flowing and fire-engine red. He was in a monk's robe and a grin was playing at the ends of his mouth.  
  
Lindsey slowly turned to look at Kennedy, who was now staring at him. He then turned back to Willow.  
  
"Anything, eh?" Lindsey inquired ominously.  
  
"What are you?" Willow asked as she got to her feet with her mind set on defensive incantations and her arms ready for battle.  
  
"God of an underworld," he stated matter of factly. "I've got some power at my disposal." He then turned and looked down at Kennedy. "You could probably use some of it for your girlfriend situation here."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"You seem idiotic. Don't make me regret coming to you. Figure it out for yourself."  
  
"Y-You can help her?"  
  
"Didn't you see that coming a mile away? I would've predicted it the moment I said that I'd do anything."  
  
"Catch?"  
  
"Always a catch! The catch is that you have to kill Angel."  
  
"No."  
  
Then Willow shrieked. No one could hear it because of the sound barrier Lindsey had set up around them. Willow shrieked as her memories were pulled out for viewing. Giles suffering, Xander suffering, Buffy suffering, herself suffering, her dead fish, and Angelus stalking them all. Filling them all with fear and hatred and distrust.  
  
"YES!" she screamed. "I'll kill him! I'LL KILL THE BASTARD! I'LL KILL HIM!"  
  
"Act casual," Lindsey ordered simply before disappearing. Willow wondered what she had just gotten herself into.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Bob was done with the scavenger hunt. It had taken him a bit, but he was done. The wires and the metal and the chips were all in a pile at Lindsey's feet. He had just come back from manipulating Willow.  
  
The construction would begin as soon as Zaerintoleran was back from Australia with the Slayer's body. Lindsey was the only one who wanted to wait until Vinieria was awake before attacking the small group and eliminating it.  
  
"Why don't we just destroy them now?" Illyria had inquired.  
  
"Because they might still pose too much of a threat for us to survive a full on attack."  
  
"There aren't many of them. There are very few of them."  
  
"They have the girl, Ashley. They have Buffy, some other Slayers, and the werewolf. Angel as well. I took care of the problem of him… I hope. And the fact that there was only one emotionally unstable individual in the group is a clear warning to stay away for the moment. Not to mention the zombies. And the commanders and the emperor. They could attack while our backs are turned. What then? We surrender the world to them? There's not a way in Hell that I would allow them to gain control of the situation. I should know." Lindsey then chuckled at his little joke.  
  
That's when the Bolinkodagenat walked up to Lindsey on his throne of rubble with the scared little sister of Buffy Summers. Lindsey smiled. "That's a good job, Bolinkodagenat. Keep it up."  
  
"Oh, my God," Dawn muttered upon seeing Lindsey. "What's going on?" Lindsey leaned in close to Dawn, who was held out to him by the Bolinkodagenat like some trophy.  
  
"Drop her," he ordered and Dawn fell to the topmost stair of the four leading up to Lindsey's throne. She got up and Lindsey could sense her want, her need, to run.  
  
"If you prove that I can't trust you then you'll be in a vice grip for the rest of your very short life. Don't say anything. You don't need to." Dawn's overwhelming belief in Buffy coming to save her was annoying. He didn't sense the thought of her fighting for herself anywhere in that jumbled mess of thoughts that was Dawn's mind.  
  
"Why did you bring me here?" she asked, not following the one rule Lindsey had set for her. He didn't care.  
  
"Remember Glory, Dawn?" Lindsey said with a smile. Dawn's eyes widened in apprehension. Lindsey couldn't help but chuckle. "I'm sorry, but Glory's work will be finished tonight, Key."  
  
"B-B-But I thought…"  
  
"You thought what Glory thought. She never did her homework efficiently. With the right ritual and the right placement you can be used at any time I want to use you. Since you've only eight hours to live I suggest you enjoy it. Now run along and stay close. You'll be experiencing extreme pain soon after you wander too far away. Take my word for it. I'll play with you as morbidly as Leatherface with his victims." He then smiled. "Neither of us wants that now do we?"  
  
Dawn stood where she was for the moment, disbelieving. She thought her mind was being toyed with for their sadistic pleasures.  
  
"Run along." She still stood anchored to where she was.  
  
"Run along!" he snapped. That broke her entrancement and she took off down the center of the alley covered on both sides by Venacklondages and Jarlkarlones.  
  
It was at that time that Buffy realized that Dawn was missing. A futile search party was organized shortly thereafter and so much energy was wasted as they scanned much of the surrounding wreckage with much help from Ashley. Even after all of the search party trekked back to the resting area and to the wounded Buffy kept searching without the scanning aid of Ashley. Her cries for Dawn were heard throughout the darkening city as Dawn's time of death drew ever closer.  
  
Zaerintoleran was back with the body of Claire and the construction of Vinieria had been completed. The beautiful dead body of Claire was clad in sheet metal with wires shooting out from her spinal cord. Each of these wires was connected to a small computer. Each of these computers was filled with the parts that the Jarlkarlones and Bob had come up with. They were regular supercomputers. Each one shot information into the at the moment inactive brain of the Slayer's body.  
  
Dawn had been wandering by the collapsed building that Angel and company had gone through so much in so very recently. The hotel that Angel had been hung in and Angelus had been unleashed in. She had been wandering by that building when Lindsey appeared in front of her and escorted her back to the center of his domain. She hadn't gone willingly but Lindsey overpowered her to the extreme. She was given some marks on her head with black ink and clad in a robe. She had been forced to do this by not only Lindsey but Illyria and Bob.  
  
Her belief in Buffy was still abundant and Lindsey didn't feel like shattering that belief no matter how annoying it was. A pain in his ass. A thorn in his side.  
  
The Jarlkarlones had created a small camber not too far underground. In this chamber hung suspended by the ceiling was an equilateral triangle with its tip pointing up. It was the size of a good-sized house's roof.  
  
Below that were two slopes. One on one side and one on the other. Both would carry Dawn' blood down to the center where the portal would open. Also at the center was the metal woman that had appeared in Gunn's dreams. Her awakening was a major turning point in the war and many others all across the world had dreamed of her like Gunn had because of the pure energy that was pressing against the barriers of reality to allow this to happen.  
  
Dawn would lay down on the catwalk of the triangle's tip and she would be cut. Lindsey wouldn't bother with the shallow cuts of before because the shorter the gates were down the better. They had so many demons on guard to slaughter the unwanted demons to come through the open gates, but if there were enough coming through they wouldn't be able to hold their ground and the demons would leak into the world and create havoc and chaos that Lindsey wanted to create.  
  
So Dawn would be practically stabbed, not cut. Lucky for Dawn she didn't know this. Otherwise she would've struggled so much more.  
  
Lindsey led her to the point where she had to lay down and let her lay down herself. Her eyes were watering and her thoughts were trailing to Spike and Willow and Xander. Her faith in Buffy was dwindling.  
  
This inspired sympathy from Lindsey. He hadn't wanted to kill someone like this, but the ends justified the means.  
  
"I'm truly sorry for this," Lindsey whispered into her ear as he kneeled down on the small catwalk they were on. "Close your eyes."  
  
"No," Dawn stated as she shook her head rapidly. "Buffy!"  
  
"Be quiet, Dawn." "I want to see Buffy," Dawn whined. "I want to see them all again."  
  
"You will." He wasn't lying. There was an afterlife and they would all be reunited in it. "Close your eyes."  
  
"I don't wanna!" she screamed. She began to struggle. So Lindsey did the only thing he could do to stop her struggling: he stabbed her right in the stomach. So much of her blood had been drained in the slashing she had endured before by glass, but there was enough left to open the gates long enough for the entrance of who Lindsey wanted to enter this dimension. She gulped and looked calmly down at her butcher knife-impaled stomach. Blood was coming up and out of the wound. It was then that the reality of the situation hit her. She was going to die.  
  
Lindsey tore the knife out of her and then plunged it back down in between her breasts. He slit down to the first stab wound. Blood gushed forth and Dawn began to feel less pain. She began to accept her death as an inevitability. She feared it yet she didn't fear it. She looked down the stone triangle's right slope and saw the blood dribbling down to the bottom and over the edge. She looked to the left and saw the same thing. The rock was very smooth and the cave was very red. The body of Claire, all clothed in metal, was beyond her sight, but the wires and computers were in clear sight. She knew this was some sick combination of science and magic.  
  
There were several Jarlkarlones stationed all over the multi-storied chamber. She was in extreme pain. She couldn't formulate words. She looked to the gigantic main entrance of stairs and watched as Buffy ran down them to save her. She was covered in demon blood and looking as beautiful as ever. She didn't even care that was just a hallucination. Buffy was there and Dawn mouthed her appreciation of all the times her older sister had saved her life. She mouthed her apologies and she mouthed her sadness at not seeing Buffy through her horrible depression. She mouthed everything as she died with no help coming.  
  
She heard a rumbling as the gates opened. Lindsey stood up with his odd eyes looking down upon her with great pity. He then took off and ran to the stair well that led down through the stories. He reached the bottom and stared at the gate which was splashing silver light all over the walls.  
  
There was fighting going on now. She heard it dimly. Demons fighting demons.  
  
Then she heard Lindsey scream in ecstasy. Dawn looked down at him. His yellow and white  
eyes now filled with concern as his smile faded.  
  
A horrible ghost crossed her vision. It destroyed her sanity in a single blow upon her sighting of it. Then it disappeared and she heard a screaming. A female's screaming. Then someone else shouting for the gates to be closed. To close the gates.  
  
One of Illyria's tentacles reached upwards and wrapped around Dawn's head. The last thing Dawn had seen was the grin on Lindsey's face. Then her head was crushed like a watermelon and her heart stopped its pumping as her body slowly shut down.  
Dawn Summers, sister of Buffy Summers, was dead.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
"Vinieria!" Lindsey shouted at the body of Claire laying in the pool of blood. He rushed forth with his arms outstretched. He wanted to hug his old love. He hadn't seen her in so long.  
  
She looked at him and then smiled.  
  
"Oh, Lucifer," she sighed. "You're the only guy who would go through all of this to get me back."  
  
"I know," Lindsey, possessed by Lucifer, replied. "I love you."  
  
"I love you, too." The devil embraced his love through his human shell and all was good for him as Buffy continued her search on the other side of town.  
  
_**666**_  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. Sorry to fans of Dawn, but I needed to kill her to get this story's finale rolling. Can any of you believe this story's already over 210 pages long on Microsoft Words? Longest thing I've ever written thus far in my fifteen years of existence.  
Anyway, that's it for my weekly update. Not much left of the story, now. Some flashy battles, some deaths, some of a lot of stuff. While there's not much story left to cover--in comparison to how much of the story has already been covered--there'll probably be many more chapters. Hope you all enjoy each and every one of them. Goodbye.  
  
"Joel: Is there any risk of brain damage?  
Dr. Mierzwiak: Well, technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage. But it's on a par with a night of drinking. Nothing you'll miss." - Joel's concerned "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" 


	24. Willow Plots and Doyle Explains

** Chapter Twenty-Four:**  
**Willow Plots and Doyle Explains**  
  
The futile search was still going. It had been several hours since they had departed from what was left of the base for the second time to search fruitlessly for the missing sister of Buffy Summers. The sun had just been peeking over the edge of the Earth before, but at that point it was shining brightly at its peak in the sky.  
  
Willow was no longer tending to Kennedy. She knew the situation with her and no more attention to the soulless being was necessary at the moment. Not to mention Willow was as worried about Dawn as Buffy was.  
  
Buffy was in a state of denial. Willow was far too exhausted for denial… or mourning. She knew  
that the search for Dawn was futile and she really, honestly didn't care. She had been through so much and all she wanted now was to live the rest of her life with a fully functioning Kennedy at her side. None of her Sunnydale friends were in that future that she wanted.  
  
She wasn't certain of how she would kill Angel. She didn't care that Buffy would go into mourning not only for Dawn but for the first man she ever loved and might give up the will to fight. It sounded heartless, but she was far too tired to care.  
  
Xander would be happy that the vampire was dead. The two of them had never really gotten around to liking each other. Neither had Spike and Xander for that matter.  
Willow suddenly knew, not suspected, knew that Dawn was dead. It was her vague mental connection with Lindsey that allowed her this information. She also knew that something very big had happened because of Dawn's death. She said nothing to Buffy.  
  
Ashley and Glen were ahead of the others, searching frantically through the dead city. Ashley had given up hope already. She had told Willow that not a single mental or physical trace of Dawn could be sensed by her.  
  
Willow wondered how it must feel to be suddenly endowed with all that tremendous power. She didn't really care. She sensed pain and loss and depression in Ashley and still didn't give a rat's ass.  
  
Willow had a spell that she thought would help her in her mission to destroy Angel. By using the spell she would make her own treachery known. She would be playing with matches and would get burned. She didn't care about that, either. As long as Kennedy was still a vegetable, the world would suffer.  
  
Meanwhile…  
  
Spike, Faith, Xander, Giles, Robin, Gunn, Lorne, and Oz were on the other side of the city searching their own area. Their area was proving to be no less empty than Buffy's. Their search was half-hearted. They were all very tired. It had been so long since any of them had slept well. It had been so long since any of them had experienced safety. It had been so long since any of them had experienced one single moment of being awake that wasn't spent in pain. They were scared and tired.  
  
Spike was optimistic about Dawn's chances of still being alive; he hadn't seen her death yet. If anyone were to die soon it would be Buffy. Spike wasn't certain which one of the two he would prefer to survive.  
  
Faith, Robin, Giles, and Xander were trying hard to be optimistic as well, but it was harder for them since they had no proof of her survival like Spike.  
  
Lorne and Oz were the only two of the group who weren't well acquainted with the Slayer's sister, and thus they had no reason to be optimistic. They were negative and believed the search to be futile.  
  
Silence was shared uncomfortably by all of them as they marched down the street full of dirt, dust, cement, bricks, and glass.  
  
The silence was suddenly shattered as a group of five or six zombies poured into the street. The group spotted the living and charged forth. They were all almost immediately cut down by gun fire. Those without guns scrambled forth and confiscated the weapons from the two soldier zombies.  
  
"Well, that was certainly unexpected," Xander muttered.  
  
"Let's hope that's it for them," Spike stated. Then he noticed something. "They're not just soldiers are they?" The others then noticed the civilian zombies as well.  
  
"Christ! These zombies are from out of town!" Xander exclaimed.  
  
"Why are you surprised? Everything's all blown up and those killed rose. I'm surprised we haven't run into the civilians sooner." Oz limped to the group of dead zombies after saying this. "And, well, it's us. It's our luck. Things are about to get worse for us. We should go back. If Dawn is still alive she'd be near the base. Away from it isn't safe and I think even she knew that." It didn't matter to any of them that Oz had just suggested Dawn was dead. No one retorted angrily. No one became angry with Oz at all.  
  
They didn't have the time to. Oz was right, things were about to get much worse for them.  
Zombies poured into the street by the hundreds, surrounding the miniscule group. Spike had deja-vu as he thought of the fight in the alley back about a week beforehand.  
  
Guns were raised in defense not at the zombies but the larger threats, the Zombie Commanders. The gigantic Zombie Commanders standing at various places in the groups of zombies. They were surrounded by an army of dead bodies and demons.  
  
From atop the building to the direct right of the group watched Andrew, who was frightened and pumped full of dread. He knew he was about to watch his friends be torn apart by an army of zombies and he couldn't bear to watch. He closed his eyes and sat facing in the direction that the sun would set.  
  
"What's the plan?" Lorne inquired. He was an amateur at aiming and he knew it. If there was a fight to ensue he would have the lowest death count of them all.  
  
"We shoot till we're either dead or out of bullets," Giles replied. "Whichever comes first."  
  
"Smartest plan to ever leave the mouth of an English fella," Spike stated sarcastically.  
  
"How about we shoot those big, white things?" Xander said. "They probably pose a huge threat and we could help out the others by taking them out."  
  
"It's likely they won't attack," Oz declared. He was preparing to turn over to his wolf form. His teeth were becoming fangs and his voice deepening to a growling.  
  
"Let's just get it over with," Faith said.  
  
"Yeah," Gunn agreed.  
  
"Okay, ramblers," Robin began. "Let's get rambling." They then waited for the zombies to charge. They didn't have enough bullets to just waste on body parts and misses.  
  
The zombies didn't charge. The ones close to the building that Andrew was on top of made way for the Zombie Emperor.  
  
He strolled into the clearing in army slacks he had stolen from a zombie. He had hoped to see some of his old friends. Instead he was faced with strangers. Two of them seemed familiar, though.  
  
Doyle then placed the two in his memory. Oz and Spike. They had both been in town, Oz to help Angel and Spike to hinder him. It had all revolved around a magic ring that Angel had smashed almost upon retrieval.  
  
The commander of the Zombie Commanders grinned at Oz but was confused as to why Spike and the werewolf were on the same side. He decided to find that out later. At the moment he needed to find out how many deaths there had been in the team.  
  
"Are Angel and Cordelia alright?" Doyle asked while looking at Oz. Oz was beginning to sprout fur. He raised a very thick eyebrow.  
  
"What?" he growled.  
  
Doyle smiled. "What? Don't remember me, Ozzy-boy?" Oz shook his growing head. It was now obvious that he was wolfing out and it was creeping Doyle out.  
  
"It's me! Doyle!"  
  
"Doyle?" The name sounded familiar, but Oz couldn't place it.  
  
"Doyle?" Spike exclaimed. He had placed the name right away, surprised he hadn't placed the half-demon's look immediately. They didn't share a friendly relationship--that when without saying--but they didn't know each other. "Calm down, wolf-boy. This is Doyle."  
  
"I don't know who that is."  
  
"One of Angel's lackeys way back in the day. Remember? You and him were fighting against me for that ring."  
  
Oz then remembered. "Oh! I thought he died."  
  
Spike then looked at Doyle. He was confused as well. "He did. Are you corporeal?"  
  
Doyle raised an eyebrow and shook his head no. "Why wouldn't I be?"  
  
"Just checking."  
  
"What the hell is going on?" Faith demanded. "We're surrounded by zombies and white demons, and you're reminiscing with some guy who died however long ago?"  
  
"Sounds crazy," Oz agreed.  
  
The others then agreed as well, nodding their heads.  
  
Doyle chuckled.  
  
"None of you know how I died, do you?" Doyle inquired.  
  
Some of them shook their heads. None of them knew.  
  
"Don't have enough time to explain it all to you. Let's regroup with Angel, Cordelia, and whoever else has joined his little group." Gunn and Spike exchanged a glance. "I'd like for you to explain things now," Spike stated.  
  
"Same here," Faith joined in.  
  
"Why don't we hold off on the explanation until we get back to the base?" Oz suggested. "Then Doyle won't have to explain twice what's going on."  
  
"Anyone forgetting about the zombies surrounding us?" Xander asked.  
  
"Don't worry about them; I control 'em," Doyle informed the group.  
  
There was a moment of silence.  
  
"Yeah you're definitely gonna have to explain a lot," Gunn said.  
  
"I know that," Doyle replied. "First let's get your buddy down from that roof." Doyle looked up to the tall building beside them that looked about to collapse.  
  
"Huh?" several of them said simultaneously.  
  
"Some geeky-looking kid the Zombie Commanders spotted spying on 'em. Figured he was with you." Faith couldn't think of a person in their group that whose whereabouts were unknown.  
  
"You mean Andrew?" Spike suggested. "Very geeky. Possibly homosexual, too." Faith mentally slapped herself for failing to realize Andrew was missing.  
  
"Who wants to go get him? We'll wait. All four-thousand and counting of us."  
  
"I'll go get the bastard," Faith declared. She brushed past Oz, who was still half in his wolf form, and entered the building.  
  
"So…" Doyle began. "Where's Angel, Cordelia, and everybody?"  
  
Spike: "Angel's on the other side of this skeleton of Los Angeles. Me, Lorne--green demon there--and Gunn--big guy--here are new recruits to his group. Then there's this nice little tart with a hole in her stomach named Fred off somewhere. By the way, I've got a soul now."  
  
"That so?" At least that was cleared up for now. "Cordelia?" Spike hesitated. Doyle understood and a pit formed in his half-demon stomach. The next five minutes were shared in complete silence. The silence was broken by Faith and a weathered Andrew came out of the building.  
Introductions that were necessary were made and the group and its new army of zombies traveled back towards the base to wait for Angel and the others.  
**  
_666_**  
  
Hey, MorbidMan here. I guess this isn't technically a weekly update since it was two weeks ago that the last update was. Anyway, the time between updates should continue as weekly from now on. Sorry for the delay, but I had too much depressing stuff going on to write last weekend.  
  
Sorry, Tariq, about the morbid ness of the story. It's how I write. I throw my characters into a very horrible situation, and then, well, you'll see. The rest of the story isn't going to be only morbid. There'll be some very bad moments, such as when Willow launches her attack on Angel, but just keep reading and you'll see some of the lightheartedness experienced in this chapter.  
  
See you all next weekend.  
  
"Everybody be cool. You be cool." - Seth Gecko "From Dusk Till Dawn" 


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